Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

While the restaurant proper was apparently not harmed, a major fire on Saturday night 26 October took down the offices, pits & distribution center for this longtime Midlands barbecue staple, forcing the chain to close at least on a temporary basis. According to the video links provided by commenters Logan, Dustin & Andrew, the cause of the fire is still unknown.

I have only eaten at Piggie Park once, but I thought it was pretty good, and figured I would be back some day. Hopefully that will still happen. The place has had a somewhat controversial history with the founder's politics being out of step with the modern South, but his heirs looked to have worked past that, and while various locations have featured here from time to time the chain has remained a local constant.

The pictures above were taken on 25 March 2012, well before the fire. You can see the news reports of the blaze here, here & here.

(Hat tip to commenter Logan)

Perry's Gourmet Flaming Grilled Chicken (there's a mouthfull by itself!) opened in this former Taco Cid building in on 29 August of 2022. WLTX had the story here.

Apparently the chicken was Portuguese style, which I am not familiar with, but they had traditional Southern items as well. The Google reviews are almost uniformly positive, though there are not a ton of them, which may be an indication they weren't getting the volume they needed.

And of course, the building is odd and old, something Taco Cid finally gave up on, so there may well be a lot of issues to be addressed as indicated in the Closed For Remodeling sign. Unfortunately I don't see any work going on, and those signs are often more aspirational than accurate. Hopefully that won't be the case here and they will be back, but we'll see.

(Hat tip to commenter Payne)

Koffee Koala was the follow-on in this Cayce Crossing suite to another animal themed coffee bar The Lazy LLama, which closed in 2021.

According to their Facebook, while 3 February was their last day as a storefront after being unable to renegotiate the lease, they continue doing a delivery business through their website.

(Hat tip to commenter Robin)

I never ate at La Fiesta, though I did eat in the building when it was a Shoney's. It had been here for many years however, before closing on a temporary basis in the Spring of 2022. They came back after that, but have now called it a day.

Here is their Facebook, which pretty much recapitulates the information on the door sign.

(Hat tip to commenter Heath)

This CVS was a fairly short & straight shot away from the one across the street from Parkland Plaza, which may have been a factor in the decision to shut it down. It also can't have helped that it is across the street from a new Wal-Mart Neighboorhod Market with a drive-through pharmacy.

(Hat tips to commenters Brandon Brown & Russ)

For some reason I thought I had done this Cash-O-Matic just down from the Triangle City Zesto some time ago. In the event it appears not, though I did get to the ones on Broad River Road and Sunset Drive. As nearly as I can tell, this one closed down sometime around 2015.

I admit I still like the name.

Like many of the old buildings with a faux stone exterior, this location on Knox Abbott Drive was once a Popeye's restaurant. However since at least 2009, and probably well before, it was the location for Vacuum Center.

Recently they moved shop to 1306 Charleston Highway, a building which was also a restaurant: Chappy's Fish & Chips:

(Hat tip to commenter Thomas)

Here is one where I just kept misplacing the pictures over and over. I observed back in 2013, when the first photos were taken, that this McDonald's on the Charleston Highway near the junctions with I-26 & I-77 still had the boxy kids' play area architecture. Since I like that look and knew that the chain was phasing it out, I took some pictures. And, indeed, at some point after that, they remodeled and dropped that look completely. The problem was I kept taking pictures of the new look and forgetting to do anything with them while they were still near the top of the stack. Finally when I did the Lazy Llama closing I took some more and remembered before I lost track again.

I have to admit I have not really eaten at a McDonald's in years, but they do now have a quite good cup of coffee.

I'm not sure if Lazy LLama is a chain, but there do seem to be a number of coffee shops around the country with that name, or slight variations. This one was in the old Piggly Wiggly plaza on the Charleston Highway at Fish Hatchery Road. The plaza is called Cayce Crossing, and the store name has "Cayce" in it, but the street address is actually West Columbia.

Interestingly, the follow-on operation is also a coffee shop with an animal name: Koffee Koala.

Also, I just checked the map icon to see if it were correct, and the image Google Maps brings up tells me that not too long ago, Lexington Dry Cleaning was in this slot, so I am adding it to the post title as well.

(Hat tip to commenter Robin)

While I was out looking at the Edenwood Bi-Lo, I noticed that in the adjacent strip mall All N Good Spirits (a name which I like) has moved to 1622 Airport Boulevard, which is somewhere need the old Cayce K-Mart.