Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

Here's a bit more bad news from Richland Mall, and this in one of the most high visibility areas, just across the corridor from Barnes & Noble.

UPDATE 18 September 2014 -- Added the first shot above, taken on 13 July 2008, showing the gallery in operation.

Sulley's was the follow-on operation to D's Wings after that moved out to Sparkleberry. They opened in late June or early July of 2013, so they were there for about a year.

This was another place that was on my "eventually" list, that I never got around to visiting in time. I don't know why that is, as it is fairly close to me, and when D's was there, it was a comfortable spot for a leisurely meal.

(Hat tip to commenter John)

UPDATE 22 October 2014 -- The upfit for the next tenant, J Peters Grill & Bar is well underway and they are hiring:

UPDATE 17 November 2014 -- J. Peters is now open:

If you look closely at the three pictures above (especially the last one), you can see China Max in operation at the (second) Richland Mall food court.

Commenter MrBO sends in the next two pictures, showing that China Max has now moved shop from the food court to Harden Street. I believe this leaves the food court completely empty, possibly leading some of the call center folks to actually try the pizza at the Barnes & Nobel cafe.

This is another in a long series of blows to the mall, which would be bad enough, but management adds to the problem by adopting an air of defeat, as in, for instance, turning off the elevator fountains and pool, retiring the Christmas singing bears and more recently, closing off the upper level entrance and walk-through for Belk's:

(Hat tip to commenter MrBO)

15 July 2014 -- added an additional picture, though it doesn't really add much value.

When Wendy's first arrived in Columbia (at two notch in Dentsville), it was one of my favorite places. You could place your order, pay, and pick up a, good, customized, burger almost without slowing down. Of course, I was only about 12 then, so my tastes were bound to change, and anyway the stores seemed to get slower and slower as the years went on. So it is that I believe the most recent Wendy's burger I've had was about five years ago on a trip to Aiken.

Still, even though I wasn't stopping in, I've always been surprised to see the stores close, first on Two Notch, then at the beach, and now here on Beltline by Richland Mall. They did a very fast tear-down of this store to include signage, order boards and drive-through menus. Looks like the register is still booted though..

(Hat tips to commenter Chris & my sister)

UPDATE 26 March 2014 -- Some daylight pix:

It's not clear to me how a play area could be "out of order". I suspect its more like the area didn't get enough traffic to make paying to keep it clean worthwhile.

(Hat tip to commenter Matt)

After a bit of a kerfuffle with Richland County, the Palmetto Table Tennis Club ended up opening a ping pong plaza at Richland Mall, just behind the old TGI Friday's and in-between the elevator column and the entrance of the old Blacklion.

It seemed a nice use for an empty space, and there were perhaps half a dozen or more ping pong tables there at one time. When I went through in early December however, the plaza was completely bereft of tables (though all the posters and signage were still there).

UPDATE 19 December 2013: Well, I don't know what was going on, but the tables are back!

Sadie's, in the old S & S slot in Richland Mall is closed again, this time for good (though the sandwich-board sign remains optimistic). They had closed once before a year or so ago for a change of ownership, but apparently that didn't help in the end.

(Hat tip to commenter Matt)

Well, of course I never thought to get a picture of them, but every year since the 1980s, the main elevator court at Richland Mall hosted a full orchestra of animitronic bears playing Christmas music. The signage proudly announced that the conductor bear who stood with his back to the audience benches (which were in front of Barns & Noble facing the elevator) was 'Leonard Bearstein'.

Because, you know: Richland Mall, there was never a crowd for the bears, but generally there would be a couple of kids and parents, perhaps heading to or from Gymboree sitting on (or running around) the benches.

I don't know if there was too much wear-and-tear on the bears, or it's just that nobody cares anymore, or the last guy who knew how to put them together retired, but this year, the bandstand is not in evidence, Leonard Bearstein is not tapping his baton, and the holiday decor is Christmas trees only.

Beltline Auto Brokers certainly wasn't the first operation in this sort of sprawling building on Beltline just past the old Kim's Beauty, but it is the most recent.

Interestingly, I am not able to locate a listing in the phonebooks I have at home to say when it closed. Also interestingly, surprisingly few businesses have "Beltline" in their name.

I noticed a sign on the door of Palmetto Carpet Co. near the intersection of Beltline and Devine the other day, and stopped to check it out. Unfortunately I did it rather poorly as I somehow failed to get a closeup of the door sign itself, and my memory fails on some of the details.

The gist was that Palmetto has joined forces with another flooring company and has moved to a consolidated location, the where of which escapes me...

UPDATE 9 December 2013 -- Here's the sign I mentioned. The new address is 4884-G Sunset Boulevard: