Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

This rather handsome brick building on Harden Street in Five Points was, according to the Historic Columbia Foundation, built as a laundry in the 1930s (this city property valuation report claims it was actually built in 1930). I'm sure it has been many things over the years, but most recently, it seems to have been a used furniture store called Habitat Store which was associated with The Habitat For Humanity charity. I used to love going to used furniture stores, back when they were "junk stores" rather than "antique stores", but I can't ever recall this one, so I'm guessing it probably started after I left town in the mid 80s.

This much retailed (and once churched) spot on Cross Hill Road next to the former Kroger Sav-On has never seemed to catch fire for any of its many tenants, most of which I have only a vague recollection of. Aside from all those listed above on the post title, I'm pretty sure it was a menswear shop also at one point, and I either got or thought about getting a suit there. (Something I hate like posion).

This PDF at the City of Columbia website suggests that the city was thinking about buying the building back in the 2006 timeframe and wondering what the absestos and lead paint implications would be, but apparently nothing came of that. The document describes the building as being "used as a former antiques store" -- that's certainly an odd turn-of-phrase, but implies that the building was vacant at that point, with Fletcher's having been the most recent tenant.

Cross Hill Road is an odd little stretch whose name I never could remember. For years growing up, I thought that Beltline Boulevard ran all the way to Garners Ferry Road instead of turning off towards Rosewood. I can only think that at some point a lot of road work must have been done to make the setup so illogical. (Of course it didn't help either that until last year, I thought that Garners Ferry started where Cross Hill runs into Devine Street and Fort Jackson Boulevard -- I never realized that Devine Street runs all the way to Wildcat).

At any rate, whatever you call it, this lot, along with the Kroger lot, is now Interstate feeder property (which neither was in the beginning), and I expect that eventually a hotel or national chain restaurants will take the real estate.

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The Daily Grind was one of probably hundreds of coffee-shops of that name across the country. Not that it was part of a chain -- it just seems to be a mildly clever name for a coffee-shop. I only stopped there once. As I recall, it opened when the concept of espresso drinks was pretty new, at least for those of us not in New York or the Pacific Northwest. (If you'll recall, in the terrible Bruce Willis movie Hudson Hawk they had to explain to the audience what a cappucino was). Certainly it was long before Columbia got a Starbucks. Frankly, I can't remember being either pleased or displeased at the coffee, and Rosewood was enough out of my Columbia haunts (which I was only hitting on weekends anyway as I was out of town at that point) that I just never got back. I'm not sure when the place closed. It's listed in the 1998 Bellsouth phonebook, so I'm saying early 2000s.

Compusouth I wasn't aware of at all. I have never had any luck getting parts at these small computer storefronts. They can fix your PC or sell you one, but if you want an EIDE controller or whatever, you'll have more luck at Office Depot. (I really miss CompUSA in Augusta which was very good for parts, Best Buy -- not so much). Again, I don't know when it closed, but as they haven't gotten around to taking down the sign yet, I'm saying late 2000s.

The place is currently a lacrosse equipment store. I didn't even know we had lacrosse players in Columbia..

When I first started getting "into" comics -- that is seeking them out at a comics store rather than just buying one every now and then off a spinner rack, I usually went to Silver City on Knox Abbott, or Ye Olde Comic Shope on Meeting Street (with the occasional visit to the one on Devine, the one on Forest Drive near Hardees, or the one on Parklane). Either Acme wasn't around at the time (mid 80s) or I missed it somehow. By the time I moved back to town, I was getting comics mostly through a subscription service or I would stop off at Heroes & Dragons with its easy access to my I-20 too-ings & fro-ings. In the event, I think I only stopped at Acme Comics once, when it was in its Rosewood location, and I can't really recall if I bought anything or not.

I must admit that I thought they were still on Rosewood, and didn't realize they had moved to West Columbia until I heard that they were closing. That part of State Street is rather interesting and eclectic though I must admit that the antique warehouse is the only one of those shops I hit with any frequency (and that proably no more than 4 or 5 times a year). I would have thought it a good fit for a store like Acme, but i guess neither the comic nor the music business is what it was these days.

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I think I've been in florists to send condolence flowers more often than for any other reason which is not a pleasant association. I've never done that in Columbia as far as I can remember though, and so was never in Kirby Croft According to the archived version of the their website, the company started in 1947. That's a 63 year run, which is something the family can be proud of.

The sign on the front door leaves some hope for the future, but apparently not in this location as the building is up for sale. It's a very ineresting building too, with the bay window and the house-like main section. It's almost exactly across the street from former KFC and not too far from the old Varsity, Kershaw Tires and the old Eckerd's. I'm afraid this section of Main has seen better times.

(Hat tip to commenter Jim)

Here's another of Two Notch Road's many car lots. This one (which apparently also occupied the adjacent 6600 Two Notch Road address) seems to have moved. According to their sign, to 6729-A Two Notch., which google gives that as the address of the Very's plaza.

The buildings here are nothing special, but I really like the free-standing canopy in the parking lot, both for the canted roof and for the fact that it has only one support. And of course, what would any car lot be without the strands of flag triangles?

Although I do not recall this store, I am reasonably sure from the architecture that it was at one time an A & P. The building doesn't have the classic steeple, but otherwise the look is quite similar to other old A&P buildings. If I am right, then this store would have been in the boonies when built, but the building of Spring Valley High in the 1970s proves that the population in the area was already growing.

Although Gold's Gym is a top-tier brand (or presents itself as one at any rate), it does often seem to follow the Lizard's Thicket "hermit crab" strategy of moving into existing buildings, something it did here, at the old Columbia Athletic Club, on Harbison and most recently at the old Sofa Express location at Sandhill. When Sandhill opens, they will have two locations quite close together. It would not surprise me to see this one close, though there is no indication of anything like that on their site.

UPDATE 7 April 2010: Originally (as you can tell from the text), I thought this was an A&P. I was wrong, it was a Piggly Wiggly, and I have changed the post title to reflect that.

House Brand was one of the two new operations (Turning Pointe is the other) that set up shop in the old Steak & Ale on Forest Drive.

It's an interesting building, done in that faux Tudor style that Steak & Ale used. Barring a fire or some other catastrophe, I've got enough furniture to last a lifetime, so I never stopped by House Brand, but it looks to have been in the part of the building that was briefly Buster's Bistro, and judging from their web site which is still up at present, they were a local family firm specializing in somewhat offbeat designs. Unfortunately, around when they opened, the bottom fell out of the housing market, and that hit the furniture (and appliance) business especially hard.

UPDATE 25 June 2010: Added some more photos.

OK, you knew you were going to be seeing these pictures again, right?

Frankly, until I saw the old pictures, I had completely forgotten there was ever a store called The Banker's Note in Trenholm Plaza, and even after seeing them, I had no idea what it was, or what it sold.

As you can see, the store was east of the A&P and more or less where the current Books-A-Million is. From this shot, it's unclear to me if it included the corner location where the plaza dips north.

Doing a bit of googling turns up this information:

Ten years ago last month Suchik opened the first Banker's Note store in Roswell, Ga., outside Atlanta. In 1981 he took the four-unit operation public to repay his manufacturer-partner, with profits. Two years ago there were 32 of the units averaging 4,000 sq. ft. One year ago there were 42 Banker's Note stores. At this writing, there are 72 units with 18 more planned by the end of the current fiscal year.

The five year plan, Suchik said, calls for year plan, Suchik said, in sales by the fiscal year ending Feb. 1, 1991. For the year ended Feb 1, 1987, sales hit $34.8 million. Wall Street sees the chain pulling in a volume of $47 to $53 million for the current fiscal year.

In the next five years, store expansion will be concentrated in the nine southeastern states The Banker's Note already operates in from North Carolina down to Florida and Westward to Tennessee and Texas. The chain possibly will invade adjacent markets in Oklahoma and perhaps Arkansas, Suchik added.
....
....
Its ambitious expansion plans, the proliferation of off-pricing and discounting by traditional stores continue to force constant adjustments. "In this business no one can afford to rest on his laurels,' said Suchik.

by 1997 the firm had renamed itself to VSI Holdings, Inc.. I'm a bit unclear as to whether a change of ownership happened then, but I don't think so, as the HQ was still in Smyrna.

It appears that VSI had wider ambitions than just clothing, and that in 1999 they made a move into the software business. Maybe that didn't go so well, because by 2001 the owners were shopping the company around, looking for a buyer. It looked as if SPX would do the deal, but the deal unexpectedly fell-through later that year. Apparently after that, the company tried to wind down in an orderly fashion, but in late 2002 a lawsuit by "recalcitrant creditors" forced them into an unplanned Chapter 11.

One thing I don't see anywhere is any mention of why they ever called themselves The Banker's Note. It's certainly not a name that suggests apparel. I'm not sure when this store closed, but it was definitely gone by 1998.

The Kroger Sav-On at Decker Mall was the first Kroger I ever encountered. It opened while I was in high-school, and was really different from the grocery stores I was accustomed to before it arrived.

Firstly, it was quite large. This was before Wal-Mart super centers or anything like that, and I was used to stores the size of a Colonial, Piggly Wiggly or A & P. This store was noticably larger than any of those.

Secondly, it was more diverse. Some of the largeness was due to it having a built-in pharmacy, which none of the other stores did, but a good bit of it was from selling more than food. In the beginning, the place seemed almost like a mini department store to me, where you could never be sure just what you might find. For instance, I got the very first microwave oven I ever bought from the (now also closed) Kroger at Surfside Beach which also dates from this era, and I still recall how bemused I was to have found such a thing at a grocery store.

Thirdly, it was open late. I don't believe this store was ever 24 hours like the Forest & Beltline store, but it was open a good bit later than I was used to, and the idea that I could pop out at 10pm and buy something was very enticing. (Especially as I was starting to drive and then drive at night).

For a long time, this store, and Target carried Decker Mall. Then when the mall began to decline to the point that you either parked near Kroger or near Target because there was nothing interesting in-between, they locked the doors on the mall side of the store and made everyone come in the front. Finally, when the flight from the Decker corridor to Two Notch began and strengthened, both Kroger and Target moved into new stores, Kroger's in Sparkleberry Square, Target's just slightly east of that. I have never fully understood the demographic logic of that. Yes, the area is growing, and a new store there will make money, but it's not like everybody near Decker suddenly died -- the population that was there is still there. Of course, this store doesn't really fit in with Kroger's current look (which is, I admit, quite nice) and would have needed re-working at some point anyway. (I keep expecting the Forest & Beltline store to either close or remodel..)

Interestingly, and somewhat unexpectedly, Decker Mall survived the move of both anchors and continues to live on, mainly on the strength of the DMV, I suspect, but there actually are a few other ongoing operations there as well.

UPDATE 29 March 2010: The clouds were so nice today, I couldn't resist getting and adding some better shots above.

UPDATE 11 March 2011: Updated closing date due to research by commenter Andrew.