Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

The Horseshoe replaced Kildare's Irish Pub in the summer of 2014, and is the most recent of a long line of bars and restaurants in this spot (going back, at least, to Kester's Bamboo House). The building is now for sale, so we will have to see what happens.

According to The State, this place is a casualty of a work to rule enforcement of SC's liquor laws, which has hit a number of college bars in Five Points. It strikes me that it may be a case of killing the golden goose, but the scene had been getting out of hand, sometimes fatally, in recent years.

ConCOCKtions was the followup operation to Rum Runners in the little 724 Harden Street back lot building attached to the Kester's building.

There is already a followup in place, Back Alley. This building rotates so often that the parking lot signs have trouble keeping up (and spelling, though that's a separate issue).

(Hat tip to commenter Justin)

UPDATE 24 June 2019: Add map icon.

Commenter badger suggested that Kildare's on Harden Street might be closed, and that does in fact seem to be the case. Looking through the windows, there is a bit of dishevelment inside, with plywood up in one window and checking the roofline shows under-panels missing along the front.

Nothing has seemed to stick in this spot since it was re-purposed from a series of Chinese restaurants to bar use.

(Hat tip to commenter badger)

UPDATE 2 December 2015 -- This much clubbed spot is open again as The Horseshoe and it appears this time the front and back are the same operation:

UPDATE 24 June 2019: Add tag and map icon.

Well, that didn't last long.

Rum Runners replaced Jungle Jim's in Five Points early in 2012. Now, in late 2012, it has been replaced with ConCOCKtions sports bar.

So far, it appears the nautical mural remains.

UPDATE 24 June 2019: Add tags and map icon.

Grandma's replaced China Garden in the old Kesters Bamboo House building back in late 2009, when the first two pictures above were taken.

In the event, it seems to have lasted about three years (and to never have gotten a finished sign as seen in the third picture taken around July 2012).

The next, and current, iteration is Kildare's Irish Pub.

UPDATE 24 June 2019: Add tags and map icon.

Though I never went, it seems to me as though Jungle Jim's was there forever. I think I can remember seeing it when I visited The Parthenon in the 1970s.

As you can see from these pictures, it at least made the transition from the China Garden era to the Grandma's era as the front part of the building in which the bar is located changed concepts. (I believe that the whole building at 724 is under one ownership). Notice how the sign on the north side of the parking lot morphed from

China
Garden
Parking
Only
Towing
Enforced

to

Parking
Only

I'm not sure when Jungle Jim's closed, but it is listed in the February 2012 phonebook, so I am going with "early 2012". The follow-on operation, Rum Runners switches from a jungle theme to a pirate concept, supported by deck murals.

UPDATE 24 June 2019: Add tags and map icon.

I first wrote about this building back on 10 April 2009 when I was doing a closing on Kester's Bamboo House, and China Garden may have been closed even then, at least I don't recall seeing anyone inside, and from the pictures I took then (two of which open this closing), there already appear to be signs of work around the front door.

I'm not a big fan of Chinese food, and this wasn't one of my mother's favored places, so I never ended up eating here, but China Garden has certainly been a Five Points landmark for many years. The building has been there so long that when the fatal Harden Street renovation reached China Garden, they went under the sidewalk to shore up the foundations and found there were no foundations. This caused the street work to stall in front for an inordinate amount of time while they figured out what to do. Presumably that is all fixed now..

Anyway, it's definitely closed now, and it appears that it will reopen soon as a place called Grandma's, which I expect will no longer be Asian cusine. If they keep the "pagoda" sign as it appears they will be doing, we will have two non-Chinese restaurants in town with Chinese-themed signage. (The other is Bombay Grill.

UPDATE 24 June 2019 -- Add tags and map icon.

Kester's Bamboo House occupied the spot on Harden Street now held by China Garden and Jungle Jim's. The first (rather unflattering) image comes from the 1963 Southern Bell directory and the second from the 1970 one. I'm not sure when the place closed, but I suspect it was sometime in the 1970s. I'm pretty sure I recall hearing about it as a child, but don't recall seeing it after I began to drive myself. A posting to a genealogy website says that the original Mr. Kester passed in 1966, but I don't know if the business stayed in the family after that or was sold at that point.

I also don't know if 724 Harden was split into two businesses at that point, or if Kester's occupied the whole space by itself, though the 1970 Yellow Pages ad claims banquet seating for 100, which seems larger than the current China Garden capacity. At any rate, I'm pretty sure the current China Garden building was at least part of Kester's and does date back to that era, and is somewhat responsible for the closing of The Parthenon.

As I remember it, the story in The State was that when the interminable Five Points road work of a few years ago reached The China Garden a snag developed. As the work crews went to replace the infrastructure under the building's foundation, they found that the building had no foundation! The front wall was basically supported only by the sidewalk, so before they could go under the building to work, they had to shore everything up and this took a lot longer than they expected -- and all the while they were there, access to The Parthenon was very difficult.

UPDATE 24 June 2019: Add tags and map icon.