Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

I wrote about this place before, or at least it's main building when I did a closing for Piggly Wiggly Store 62. After The Pig closed, the building became a Gold's Gym which with this demolition moves to the old Sofa Express slot at Sandhill (apparently with plans for the old Ashley Furniture Homestore storefront as well).

As of Sunday 20 June 2010, the site is in sort of an odd state. From the front it almost appears untouched, but most of the back side has already been completely gutted or torn down, leaving the facade as sort of a potemkin shopping center.

According to commenter "mg", Dick Smith Nissan will be locating here eventually.

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Well, it is a bit sad to see their street sign proclaiming their first anniversary and then to have them closed 16 days later, but that's how it happens sometimes. (Though they apparently still have an operation in Florence).

I wrote about this building first in a closing for Cancun / Little Mexico, so the building has been at least three different Mexican restaurants. Loopnet says the place was built in 1980 and is a "Spanish Style" restaurant, so it probably has been Mexican restaurants since it was built. Notice also the fundamental tension in the Loopnet write-up (apparently left over from 2007 or so) between keeping something secret and posting it on the Internet..

I did not yet notice any "for sale" signs on the building last week, but I suppose it will be another Mexican restaurant someday.

(Hat tip to commenter IrmoJeff)

UPDATE 29 Sep 2010: The restaurant is being converted into a Wata Wing -- or maybe not.

Commenter Matt found this PDF of a legal action in Maryland against Wata Wing which seems to basically indicate that while there may be legit WW restaurants, the franchaising operation is pretty much a scam. The work being done on the Mi Teirra building matches the description in the PDF pretty much to a tee, right down to the work on the floors and the note on the door indicating that it was started without getting the proper permits. To me, the oddest thing in the PDF is that apparently none of the people in Maryland investing in WW franchaises ever asked to visit an operating WW, or at least that's the implication I'm getting. The Taco Bell on Knox Abbott seems to be in a similar state of Wata Wing stall-out.

(oops! photo screw-up -- I'll get a better one in an update!)

As promised, better picture:

I don't actually know why Parklane Road exists, or conversely why Decker Boulevard exists. I can only guess that once-upon-a-time, before all the roadwork on Trenholm and Two Notch in Dentsville, these two roads did not dovetail together as they do now and really were two roads instead of one road with two names. Anyway, like its sibling Decker, Parklane has over the years "failed to thrive". Considering that it is a corridor between two Interstates, and feeds Columbia Mall, it's hard to say why exactly, but it's not been prime retail or restaurant territory.

I had totally forgoten than this Monterrey next to the old comic store and Sounds Familiar had been an Andy's Deli back in the 1980s. The ad is from the 1985 Southern Bell phonebook. I'm not sure when Andy's moved out (keeping the Lum's Hotdogs location on Greene Street), but it seems like Monterrey has been there forever now.

UPDATE 20 April 2010: Added "better" picture. Better in that the right storefront is centered. Unfortunately the sun went away though..

Well, here's another closing in the same general vicinity of Two Notch. Hola Mexico was somewhat off the road, in a little plaza behind Rush's. I was aware of the place, but had never gotten around to going in there. Reader Nancy writes:

This was a family run business and the food was always excellent.

Too bad.

If you look at the pictures, you can tell that the facade had a South-West theme with cacti that has just been removed. There was work ongoing when I drove by, so perhaps something is in the works.

UPDATE 29 March 2010: Changed post title to add "(Moving?)" based on the comments. Added several more pictures.

UPDATE 16 April 2010: Added picture of the neon sign.

UPDATE 3 June 2010 -- The move into the old McDonald's/ Zesto / Awesome Mattress building is progressing, and the name is finally on the building:

UPDATE 8 May 2011 -- The new location is open, and has been for a while:

UPDATE 21 February 2025: Adding map icon and updating tags.

Here's another old-style Taco Bell that has moved to a new location (739 Knox Abbott Drive in this case) with drive-through capabilities and the new-style chain architecture. There is still an old-style one on Decker Boulevard (though I believe it already has a drive-through) but the ones on Devine Street and Broad River Road are gone and/or moved.

This is really too many pictures, but I like these buildings, and I like clouds. The last picture is of their new location, which is several blocks towards the river.

UPDATE 24 Sep 2010 -- As noted by commenter Jamie, the building has been re-painted, and there has been some work to convert it to a Wata Wing, but that seems to have stalled:

OK, first Zorba's on Decker closed. Then the old Zorba's sign proclaimed that a new Italian sounding restaurant would be coming. That never happened.

Then a Mexican operation repainted the facade

and nothing happened for a long time.

Then (no picture) they put a paper sign up on the front door seeming to say (I don't read Spanish) that tacos were for sale, but apparently there was nobody at the building during the time this sign was up.

Then they put handmade signs on the Decker street-level "entrance"/"exit" placards saying the place was open:

At the same time they added a ramshackle looking shed to the left of the portico and posted another sign in Spanish that appears to say something about Tacos and tortiallias (Tortas?), but note again that there appears to be nobody there.

Then they took the shed down, and again nothing appears to be going on at the place (the "OPEN" roadside signs are gone too):

And all the while the whole place appears to be for sale:

THEN they put a canopy on the outside deck. Still nobody seems to be there.

Then they turn the lights on the main sign, but the building is dark at all times:

So --- your guess is as good as mine!

UPDATE 2 November 2009: Now the canopy is gone from the deck..

UPDATE 7 August 2019: Add some tags and map icon.

Taco Bell continues to retire its "old style" south-western looking stores for larger new stores. This one is on Broad River Road just to the south of the abandonded Pizza Hut.

It's interesting that they've left so many of the fixtures inside the old store, but on the other hand, what are they going to do with them? They don't fit the concept at the new store.

Although I'm not realy sure what the Taco Bell concept is anymore. I guess they have a small niche between places like Moe's, Qdoba and Chipolte and table-service Mexican restaurants, but I'd much rather have Moe's on the fast-food end and go to a table-service place if it's more than a burrito.

The new store is visible in the last picture and is 1928 Broad River road, though further down the street than the adjacent numbering would lead you to believe.

UPDATE 24 September 2011 -- Now open as Atlantic Seafood Restaurant:

I've written about this building before, when it was a D's Wings. Since then, a Tex-Mex operation called Baja's Southwestern Grill has moved in -- and out. I was going to give them a try sometime, but in the event never got around to it until it was too late, and the restaurant curse on this building (and Saint Andrews Road in general) continues.

I think something fairly easy the owner could do to make the site viable would be to connect the parking lot to that of the gas station next door. That would give people exiting this site access to a traffic light so that left turns to get back on I-26 wouldn't be so bad. It seems like an obvious idea, so perhaps the station owners don't want the extra traffic.

Good on the owner for the forthright and informative closing door-note!

Hat tip to commenter Ken for the heads-up that Baja's was gone.

This real estate report says this building was built in 1986 -- I would have guessed a bit earlier than that. I was first aware of it when it was a Garcia's Mexican restaurant. I'm pretty sure that this was the spot anyway, though the facade was different (the real estate link says the place was remodelled in 1996..). As I think I've written somewhere, Columbia has a hard time getting and / or keeping "national" Mexican chains. We never had a Rio Bravo, Chevvy's, Chi-Chi's or On The Border, and we lost Garcia's and Don Pablo's. El Chico seems to be the only one that sticks. To be fair though, I think the whole Garcia's chain has fallen on hard times, and they closed their Myrtle Beach location several years ago.

After Garcia's the place became Roadhouse Grill which was sort of a Western place like (but not as good as) The Texas Roadhouse on Two Notch, but that didn't last long either. After that I think the building was empty for several years until it's most recent incarnation as a Bingo hall.

UPDATE 13 May 2010: Just for grins, here's the old Garcia's building in the Kroger plaza off of US-17 in North Myrtle Beach:

You don't tug on Superman's cape, you don't spit into the wind, you don't pull the mask off the old Lone Ranger, and you don't open a restaurant at 2630 Decker Boulevard.

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