Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

As mentioned by commenter Andrew, Tripp's Fine Cleaners have closed their Saint Andrews Road location. Looking at their sign, I think the closest next location to here is probably the old Piggly Wiggly location on Lake Murray Boulevard.

(Hat tip to commenter Andrew)

UPDATE 21 November 2020: Updated tags.

UPDATE 25 January 2022 -- Now Greedy Rascals, a hot dog arcade(?):

UPDATE 1 February 2024: Updating tags.

This old Hardee's building has had a number of incarnations over the years. I apparently totally missed the Top Shelf Tavern phase which commenter Andrew pointed out in the Hardee's comments, but now the follow-on operation to that, Home Team Tavern is also gone and the place back on the market.

Judging by the Facebook Page, they were still doing events on 15 February 2020, so I'm marking the closing as "Mid February".

UPDATE 15 September 2020 -- As mentioned in the comments, this place is working to open as Amora Sports Bar & Grill:

They usually come out in February, but I didn't get one, and I haven't seen any thrown in front-yards by the roadside..

Carolina Cafe in Westland Square on Sunset Boulevard, which had been in this location since 2014, closed in early December so the owners could concentrate on their downtown business at 925 Sumter Street in Cornell Arms, according to ColaDaily.

The new owner already had plans for the spot, so the storefont did not sit empty for long, and is now open again as Sunshine Cafe & Catering, though the marquee sign has yet to be fully adjusted. ColaDaily noted the opening:

Sunshine Café, located at 2250 Sunset Blvd. in the Westland Shopping Center, will still offer beloved menu items like fresh-baked bagels and paninis, similar to the previous restaurant. However, owner Shutondia Culcleasure said Sunshine Cafe will be incorporating a “sweeter side” to the menu.

“We’ll have a variety of cheesecakes, red velvet, German chocolate, just a whole sweeter side to the bakery,” she said.

(Hat tip to commenter Andrew)

I'm not really sure when this Enterprise moved to 2638 Two Notch, but at any rate, I just noticed it, so I'm going to start by tagging it Early 2019. Despite the fact that a cousin briefly worked for the chain, I've never rented from Enterprise, though the car-delivery thing goes sound nice.

The first shots are from May 2015. I mostly took them for the clouds, but figured they might come in handy someday.

I was not aware of the tea-derived drink called Kombucha until I saw the news of this place closing. From the Coladaily article on the opening of The Favored Life in March of 2019, it sounds like an interesting process:

For those who are unfamiliar with the fermented drink, Gramblin described the process the tea undergoes to become kombucha: “First you start with sweet tea, and you put it in a fermentation jar. I use a ‘scoby,’ which [stands for] a symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast – you have to grow it,” she said. “You stick them inside the gallon jar, and that eats the sugar out of the sweet tea, and outputs CO2. It takes all the sweetness out and replaces it with that fizzy taste.” She then removes the scoby, strains the liquid, and adds flavor with organic juices. The whole process takes approximately two weeks.

I like tea, but I'm not sure about fizzy tea. I guess I'm not against trying some. At any rate, as the Free Times reported, Columbia was possibly not ready for Kombucha, and The Favored Life closed its doors as a retail establishment in September or October of 2019.

The Carolina Strip Club steak-house was the follow-on operation in this spot to Bull Market & Taverna, something I was not aware of when I drove by, or I might have stopped and gotten pictures from the other side of the building as well for comparision.

According to The Free Times, the owner put the closure down to building issues and wants to try again in West Columbia:

“I love doing business in Columbia, I was just having some major issues with the building,” Segal explains. “I couldn’t afford to put all that money into it with all the problems.”

So far, I do not see anything about future plans on their Facebook page.

(Hat tip to commenter Heath Roberts)

I noticed when I was at Shoney's today, that the adjacent Interstate Battery Center had closed, and was being gutted. The signage is off the building, though for now the road sign remains.

You can't tell it from these shots, but if you look at google maps, you can see from the drive-through on the east side of the building that this was pretty clearly a bank at one time, though I don't know of what stripe.

UPDATE 4 March 2020: Added Standard Federal Savings & Loan to the post title based on the comments.

UPDATE 2 September 2020 -- This place is about to open as a Nick's Gyros & Seafood:

I think I can confidently predict a rapidly forthcoming vacancy at Gervais Professional Suites.

I have been going through some old pictures the last several days, and ran across this set, which I had staged for uploading back in 2015. I'm not sure if I actually did do a post, and it was lost in the database crash of a few years ago, or if I just dropped the ball for some reason. (I certainly can no longer say I remember each and every post!).

Anyway, Jordan's Modern Bride & Groom was located in The Shops of O'Neil Court. After closing this store, it appears they moved to Spring Valley Commons and then decided to take the store online in 2016.