Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

PowerOne Computer Warehouse was a rebuilt PC store that I believe opened on Saturday 29 August 2009. I say that with some confidence, because I had taken a bunch of pictures of the nearby The Aquarium & Pet Shop on that day, and stopped in at PowerOne on my walk back over to Fuddruckers where I was eating lunch.

I found them in the midst of something of a mini-crisis because they had not intended to open on 29 August, but there was a printing error in all the flyers that were distributed in the paper forcing them to open several days before they were ready. This meant that almost nothing in the store had a price on it, and in many cases not even of description of the PCs processor speed, amount of RAM, OS version etc. It looked like they had some pretty good stuff in the store, but as I didn't really need anything, I didn't persue the prices of any the systems.

I don't know if the unplanned opening somewhat "wrong-footed" them as the Brits might say, but for whatever reason, they didn't make it to New Years.

I recall seeing Dugan's Sports Bar from time to time as a drove Bush River Road, but I don't know anything about it other than that it preceded PowerOne into the 1807 storefront.

UPDATE 4 Jan 2010: Commenter Jeff notes that home theater company Sound Advice was once in the space.

UPDATE 22 August 2012 -- It appears that the place is preparing to open as one of the many new (and controversial) "Internet Sweepstakes" operations in the Columbia area:

UPDATE 24 October -- Well the sweepstakes thing never happened; I believe the law came down on all of them before this one got opened. Anyway, it's Sissy's Furniture now.

I've never been great at video games, though I used to go to arcades pretty often. Galaga is my favorite, and the one I was/am best at, though that "best" was no great shakes on an absolute scale. I never did make the transiton from arcade games to computer/console/online games and so have never been in a store like Game Crazy. As far as I can tell from googling around, the chain has not declared bankruptcy or made the news for massive store closings, so I guess this closing can be chalked up to local conditions probably exacerbated by the recession in general. Now if they could only put some place you could get coffee and a snack in that little strip..

(Hat tip to commenter Jason)

UPDATE 28 Oct 2010 -- This place is nearly ready to re-open as a GameStop (In fact if they made the opening date promised on their sign, they are open now):

I like to eat lunch at the Schlotzsky's on the corner of Parklane and O'Neil Court sometimes, and the last time I was there, I noticed that several of the suites in the little corner strip it occupies were vacant. You would think that it's a visible high-traffic location, but I guess being near Columbia Mall isn't the draw it used to be.

If you click through to the large version of the picture, you can tell that there was originally some other writing between "G.G's" and "Flowers", but I can't make out what it would have been. I'm putting 2009 as the closing date here, but honestly I can't recall if I ever saw the place open or not. I guess florists don't really impinge much on my attention.

UPDATE 26 Feb 2011: Changed the title to give the full shop name "G.G's Artistry In Flowers" given in the comments, and in the main marquee for the Corner Shoppes of Parklane, which I somehow totally missed when I took the initial picture above. Here it is:

UPDATE 28 March 2011 -- It's now a We Buy Gold place:

I've always been a little surprised that the Tempur-Pedic logo got approved and widely used. Of course there's nothing racy about someone just getting a good-night's sleep, but that someone is undeniably a lady, and one with a rather shapely derriere not overburdened with clothing. I see in fact that the Tempur-Pedic company itself now seems to have moved to a logo with less, um, cleavage.

For some reason or other, Two Notch Road seems to have dozens of mattress stores. It now has one less as this Beds Plus store at Two Notch & O'Neil Court is gone. In fact, as I drove by tonight I saw that the next tenant has already moved in, but it was dark and raining, so I didn't quite catch what it was.

This Food Lion in Airport Square at the intersection of Airport Boulevard and The Charleston Highway, was open as recently as 3 March 2009 when they posted a want ad for a sales manager.

I posted a number of closings in this general area lately, though not all of them actually happened lately. On the whole I think its fair to say the business climate is not good there. I'm not super familiar with the local stores, but I'm drawing a blank on a grocery store closer to here than the Bi-Lo in Parkland Plaza, which is a fair drive down Knox Abbott. I guess there's the Wal-Mart and Bi-Lo on US-1, but that's about the same distance.

UPDATE 4 Feb 2011 -- It's now a "Save A Lot" grocery store. I went in the one in Aiken once and didn't see any brands I had heard of..

(Hat tip to commenter Andrew)

UPDATE 7 Feb 2011: Updated the post title with a more precise closing date based on the comments.

UPDATE 13 January 2021: Update tags, add map icon.

While going out towards Sumter to cut a tree recently, I noticed that the Ole Timey Meat Market on Garners Ferry Road (opposite the new Walgreens) is gone.

I have to admit that I've never been in an actual "butcher shop" -- we always got our meat from the supermarket growing up and inasmuch as I have any concept of a butcher, it would be Alice's boyfriend on The Brady Bunch.

I believe there is still an Ole Timey Meat Market open on Saint Andrews Road.

UPDATE 31 December 2009: It turns out this location has not closed but has moved to Rosewood Drive (see the comments).

UPDATE 16 August 2017 -- Now a pawn shop:

Here's another recession casualty, one of several recent ones on Fernandina Road. I don't know much about boats or RVs, but I know it takes a lot of money to run either, even though gas prices have come down a little.

It appears the site and contents were auctioned on 21 November 2009:

BUSINESS LIQUIDATION AUCTION

SATURDAY - NOVEMBER 21, 2009 - 9:00 AM

COMPLETE LIQUIDATION OF TRUCKS, TRACTORS, SHOP EQUIPMENT, BOATING & RV PARTS & SUPPLIES, OFFICE FURNITURE, & RELATED ITEMS

(I would not expect that link to work more than a few months).

The site appears to be fairly large and it will be interesting to see what goes in there next.

Well, I have to admit this is a pretty non-descript former gas station, but I'm a little curious as to what it was. The place is on the south side of Augusta Road (US 1) in West Columbia just before it joins up with Jarvis Klapman Boulevard. It appeared to me that the location would be something of a pain to get in and out of, so that may have had something to do with the place being empty. I know that this is around 2100 Augusta Road, and Google Streetview suggests it's about 2176 (though it should be an odd street number, I think) but I'm unable to google up any information on street numbers in that range..

UPDATE 7 December 2009: Thanks to commenter Badger, I've got the street address (2123) and a pointer to a business. That and google let me change the post title from "Gas Station" to the list currently at top now.

"Rawls Auto Auction Inc"? Hmm.. "You'll never find.... Another car like mine.."

UPDATE 15 Jan 2011 -- It's now Beer & Tobacco Outlet:

OK, as is often the case, my memory is a bit hazy on this, but I think I recall this whole plaza as being the original site for the Cayce K-Mart, with this outbuilding, now mostly an auto-parts operation, some sort of grocery store. Anyway, it still seems to have that sort of "grocery" look in the facade.

The area in general (around the start of Airport Boulevard and Piggy Park) doesn't seem to have done well in recent years. The Magic Carpet Slide went under, Shoney's moved, the A&P closed, and the whole little plaza across the Charleston Highway from this strip has been in decline for years.

On the other hand, the last Taco Cid is still hanging in there..

I never visited Kenny's Auto Supply, in fact, I don't believe I ever knew it was there by name, but after it moved from Five Points to 1106 Knox Abbott Drive, it became something of a local cause celebre in that you were always seeing or hearing "the site of the former Kenny's Auto Supply".

That's because it was one of the fairly rare chances to build something new in Five points, and there was quite a lot of controversy about what to actually do with the site. I never could keep up with all of it, but apparently there was a plan for a public parking garage which fell through, and more than a little angst when the final use for the lot, a Walgreen's drugstore was announced.

It looks like the Walgreen's is pretty far along now, although I'm sure it won't open until next year. I'm not exactly sure what the metal-beam structure being built behind it is -- that one looks considerably less far along.

Here's Kenny's on Knox Abbott: