Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

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:

I guess I've seen this little building, in a triangular shaped lot more or less at the intersection of 12th Street and Augusta Road, lots of times over the years, but it never really made an impression on me. Recently when I was doing closings for Luigi's and then West Columbia Pawn & Loan I had the occasion to drive down that little spur (which seems to be Augusta Street rather than Augusta Road) and notice that this building was now empty.

I havent' seen the new location on Sunset Boulevard, but I would imagine it would have to have more parking and be easier to get to than this lot. It's kind of a shame to see something with "Triangle" in its name leave Triangle City though.

UPDATE 5 Nov 2010 -- Their new location at 1400 Sunset Boulevard:

This Blockbuster Video Rental on Decker Boulevard, across from the old Decker Mall has has the going-out-of-business signs up for a few weeks now.

I stopped in about two weeks ago, and it seemed that they were continuing to do a normal rental business on some titles while selling out the rest of the store to the walls. I thought the prices were good, but not great, and picked up a couple of DVDs.

As I drove by today, I saw them carting off the sign, so as of now, Decker has lost yet another business. As with Hollywood Video, I guess Redbox, Netflix and the Internet have done a real number on their business model. Lately they have been trying to adopt the Netflix model while leveraging their store network ("Bring your DVDs back to the store for immediate credit!") but so far it doesn't seem to be working.

UPDATE 7 Jan 2010: Here is the store at night after being totally cleaned out:

UPDATE 12 Jan 2010: Added another picture.

UPDATE 30 August 2011 -- work is underway to turn this location into The Chabad/Aleph House:

UPDATE 5 October 2020: This place is now Chabad Of South Carolina though I don't have a picture yet. Also updating post tags and adding map icon.

When I was checking out the closing of Fred's in Cedar Terrace on Garners Ferry recently, I noticed that the storefront adjacent to it on the left was currently empty as well.

The most recent business there, Frank Richards Beverage Shop (aka The Cocktail Shaker) has moved to suite 'D' at the front of the plaza and is apparently going strong with an active online presence as well, but I found what I take to be the next most recently previous business there to be a bit interesting.

Not for itself per-se (though I'm sure as with every closing there's a story there), but for a good example of something I've seen quite a bit since I started this. From the old sign sitting in the back of the interior, I'm pretty sure this spot was called Woodlief's Appliance Co, and the marquee sign pretty much confirms it -- If you look closely, you'll see that while the marquee box is empty now, the back of it is an old Whirlpool sign, reversed.

I've seen this a number of times now, old reversed signs still part of a later businesses signage, and I'm not sure why it is. It's doesn't seem likely that they thought the next store would be another "Whirlpool" vendor and were holding the spot...