Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

I noticed this place in Eastover on the west side of The Sumter Highway just past Horrell Hill last week. This former restaurant and pool hall has obviously been there quite a while, and has just as obvioiusly been out of business for many years too. (In addition to the clinging vines, most of the roof seems to be gone as you can tell in some of these shots). I suspect from the "Video Games" signage that it was last open during the video poker era, but not until the actual end of that era as it does not seem to be listed in the 1998 phonebook.

I got Rivers Variety Store and The Locker Room from the signs. Googling the phone number, (803) 783-5440 brought up the Jerry Thompson name.

UPDATE 21 Dec 2010: Added Laundry to post title based on the comments.

UPDATE 31 January 2023 -- This building has been razed:

Also adding map icon.

I have to say that the Pizza King looks like a really stern monarch. If you didn't order the anchovies on your pie, you would eat it and like it..

I don't actually remember seeing this place in operation, and I normally keep an eye out for pizza. Either it closed while I was living out of town, or given the odd location (Fort Jackson Boulevard where Crowson Road follows Gill Creek past K-Mart) and lack of apparent parking, my eyes just slid over it.

I know Pizza King can't have been the first operation in this building -- That illuminated arrow looks like it dates back to the 60s at least.

UPDATE 12 August 2014 -- This building is to become the new location for Utopia:

I've written about this idiosyncratic little building behind the Five Points Food Lion before, when it stopped being Gilligan's (after having been Ribby's and a number of other places).

Probably only in Columbia could you call a place The Cock Lounge -- so the next owners did. I'm not sure how long The Cock Lounge lasted. I did the Gilligan's post on 14 December 2008. At the time, the Gilligan's signage was still up, but I did see a guy working on the building's roof, so the conversion may have already been in progress.

I finally noticed TCL was open and got some pictures on 15 April 2010. It was definitely open through 24 July 2010.

By 22 November though, all The Cock Lounge signage was down (except for the lolipop sign) and the beach mural had been painted over with the name of the new operation: Your Mom's House.

(And yes, I have restrained myself from making several name related jokes..)

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This isn't quite the post I thought I would be making. Here's the thing: I remember a local restaurant that was on this side of Rosewood Drive for many, many years. It was on my "someday" list though I didn't get to it and it was torn down after I moved out of town. The only anecdote I can remember about it right now was that in the late 80s, or maybe the 90s, USC had a famous football coach (whose name I can't remember, let's call him Freddie) commit to come coach the Gamecocks. The whole town was in a commotion, and this restaurant put up on their signboard: Freddie heard about our food!.

Then, of course, the Chicken Curse struck, and he reneged on the deal and decided not to come to Carolina -- leaving the restaurant flat-footed for a couple of days with a very ironic sign.

Anyway, I was pretty sure this was the spot, but the only thing I can see before the old building was torn down to put up the Eckerd's which became Rite Aid is a pool hall called Charlie's which tried several times (apparently with success in the end to get a liquor license).

UPDATE 7 Dec 2010: Updated post title to Charlie's Cue & Cushion based on the coments.

UPDATE 10 August 2020: I have not noted it previously, but this Rite Aid closed as all the others did, and is now a Walgreens. Also added map icon, added Rite Aid to the title, updated tags.

Studebaker's was something of a Myrtle Beach landmark, from the same era as Mother Fletcher's and Xanadu (which both predeceased it). The club started in 1981 and celebrated their 28th anniversary in 2009.

I'm not much of a club person, but I was vaguely aware of Studebaker's as a Shag venue where the National Shag championships were held.

As of now, the web site is still up (they must have paid for a full year..) and has a number of videos taken inside the club. This story from the Sun News gives some details of the closing and blames it (or the owner does) on the anti-bike rules Myrtle Beach instituted a few years ago. I can certainly see the we want peace & quiet residents' point -- the annual rallies certainly are noisy and obnoxious, but on the other hand it's probably a bad idea for a tourist town with no industry to take steps to keep people away..

The storefront is in the process of being converted to a Dollar General.

Cussin' Bill's is another place I would hear about but never go around to going to. It may be just as well. From the name, I always assumed it was mainly a restaurant, but this 1997 Administrative Law Court judgement makes clear that at least by 1996 it was operating as one of South Carolina's ubiquitious video poker malls.

At this remove, it's easy to forget how pervasive video poker was in the state at that time, and how odd the operating conditions were. Video poker was legal, but only just tolerated and the ostensible rule was that no one business could operate more than 5 machines. This, of course, led to many places implementing the "mall" concept. Each room of 5 machines was operated, on paper, as a separate business. In this case, it was found that Cussin' Bill's did not have employees in each room to maintain the fiction, and they got landed with a $5000 fine and lost most of their machines.

I'm not sure when Cussin' Bill's closed. I don't think that ruling was the end for them, but I could be wrong. At any rate, after they closed, the next operation in the building was BAWA Oyster Co about which I know nothing, other than presumably they served oysters (something I have less than no interest in).

I don't even know that much about the most recent tenant, Cadallic's, which folded earlier this year. Judging from Have Your Say notes by commenters Joel & O'Reilly, it was connected with the 360 Sports Bar (also now closed) on Bush River Road, and may or may not have been a strip club.

I have to say it's a fairly attractive building (across Woodland Hills road from the old Steak & Ale and behind the old Na href="http://columbiaclosings.com/wordpress/?p=421">Steak Out) with a very nice deck. There is a lot of traffic, of course, on nearby I-20 and Saint Andrews Road, but the building is well off of those, and is fairly quiet. It seems to me that some sort of casual restaurant could do well there -- I certainly wouldn't mind having a burger or burrito out on the deck in the spring or fall.

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Westland Square is just East of Grecian Gardens on Sunset Boulevard, and is a fairly typical Food Lion anchored strip mall. This unit, just up from the former Gooney Birds was a Burnette's Cleaners when I left town. Apparently sometime thereafter, it converted into another cleaning operation, Palmetto Fine Cleaners and then into a night club, which apparently closed this year.

If I'm reading this LoopNet listing correctly, Westland Square is not currently for sale, but was recently as a package deal with "Waterway Plaza (Little River, SC), St. George Plaza (St. George, SC), South Square (Lancaster, SC), and Clover Plaza (Clover, SC)". That's a pretty geographically diverse set of properties to bundle!

UPDATE 6 June 2012: I was in error in stating above that Palmetto Fine Cleaners took over this spot. I was relying on the fact that PFC had a street address of 2250 Sunset Boulevard, but as it turns out, they were at 2250-A, the other end of the strip mall from this suite at 2250-M. I have removed Palmetto Fine Cleaners from the post title for this closing, and have given them their own closing.

I've written about this building before in the closing for Black Bull Restaurant. Hard Knox Grill was the immediate follow-on operation in that building, and was, I believe a rock-and-roll nightclub as well as a restaurant. I say "I believe" because it's another of the many places in and around town that I had a vague intention to get to sometime, but never did until it was too late.

At any rate, looking at the posted operating hours, it's probably just as well I never drove over there for lunch. That sign also appears to tell a story in that apparently at some point full-week operations were cut back to weekend-only mode.

The stack of Free Times newspapers sitting by the door is the "October 13-19 2010" issue. Those would have been dropped off on the morning of Wednesday 13 October. Since they were never taken inside to the rack in the foyer, but there is no pile from the previous week, I think it's safe to say the place operated Friday & Saturday 8 & 9 October, but not since.

(Hat tip to commenter "Nobody")

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Then:

Now:

I was hitting Moe's at University Corner on Main the other night (in the old Big Bird slot) and parked down on Devine Street, between Main & Assembly.

I couldn't help but notice that Varsity Billiards is closed. The lighted sign has always been a retro treat, and it's a shame to see it dark. (The first two,lighted, pictures are from February 2010).

The phone does not seem to have been disconnected, and the building permit is for "repairs", so perhaps they will be back. I'm not a pool player, but it would be a shame to see Varsity behind the eight-ball.

UPDATE 20 July 2017 -- Well, this is unexpected: The Free Times says Varsity is open again.

I don't actually remember this place as an Italian restaurant, but apparently in 1974 it was one. Pizza was still a pretty exotic food to me then, but was one I liked, and I would have expected to remember a pizza restaurant in the Dentsville area. I certainly knew about the Pizza Hut on Two Notch more or less where the O'Reily's Auto Parts near Best Buy now is, and about Shakey's on Parklane Road. A 32-inch pizza sounds rather overwhelming, but the sandwiches sound quite good.

After Antonio's, it was a number of night-clubs and strip-clubs. By 1997, it was operating as L B Dynasty and got in trouble with the Department of Revenue leading to a 45 day suspension of the club mini-bottle license. Whether because of that, or for some other reason, it later became Studio 54, and was that until quite recently, I think (at any rate, the sign is still there). Despite that, it has been at least one other club, Club Gemeni before it's current incarnation as Club Ego

UPDATE 4 September 2011: After being several other things, it's now Laguna Sports Bar