Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

Zoe's Kitchen (more properly spelled with double dots over the 'e') was the follow-on in this creekside lot to Frans in 2008.

Being that it was creekside, they took a big hit in the Great Flood of 2015 and were closed for a while regrouping after that. In fact, I thought they were never quite as good after the flood as before, and whereas I had eaten on the patio fairly often in good weather previously, I more or less gave that up.

Recently the entire chain was bought out by Cava which appears to have the exact same concept as Kairos, and this location is currently closed for the conversion.

(Hat tip to commenter Larry)

Fran's was a small meat-and-three on Forest Drive almost across from Trenholm Plaza. They always appeared to me to do a good business though I only went there a few times myself. My opinion is that they tended to run out of most items very early in the evening. If you weren't there by 7pm, there was probably no point in going (seniors found it ideal..). Combining that with the fact that the layout was very crowded and that they had no booths, I decided years ago that Lizard's Thicket was preferable when I wanted down-home cooking.

The new restaurant going into the location will be called Zoes Kitchen (but with the little European dots above the "e" in "Zoes"). Looking at their web site, it appears that they are a regional chain and will be serving a "healthy" Greek-inspired menu. To be frank, I didn't see anything there that really looks appetizing to me.

UPDATE 6 Oct 2010 -- Well, Zoe's is open, and has been for a while. As I said above, the menu doesn't appeal to me in general, but the Greek salad is good (if pricey), and with the closure of Zorba's on Decker I do visit here for that every so often. The patio is nice in the spring and fall as well.

UPDATE 1 September 2022: Change date year from '08' to '2008' in title. Update tags and add map icon.