Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

It's unclear to me whether this is a new operation or just a reflagging, but Chicki's Wings on Broad River in the old Taco Bell/Atlantic Seafood building is now Wings House.

Curiously, though the Grand Opening flags are out, the place was not open during their posted Saturday hours.

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I believe it is safe to borrow commenter Larry's phrase

Well the renovations are extensive

for this Knox Abbot Drive Zaxby's.

This also appears to have entailed knocking down the Sprint building at some point.

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)

The wonder of Zesto is not that one closed, but that any are still open: Each location is like a step into 50 years ago, and we are lucky to still have such portals.

That said, this location, in Chapin is actually fairly new as such things go, having opened "only" 18 years ago. As for the reasons this one closed, WIS quotes the owner:

It’s just time for me to have a normal life. Same struggles as all mom-and-pop [stores]. Can’t get decent employees, food cost, etc. Times are changing.

There is also a State story here.

(Hat tip to commenter Heath)

This State story about the opening of a House Of Raeford plant near Aiken, with the possible closure of the "Chicken Plant" in West Columbia as a possible knock-on, made me think of the now vacant Capitol Square shopping center again, and of the fact that I had noticed that the House Of Raeford office space there had moved shop back when I was checking on Jin Jin.

The new location is 630 Sunset Boulevard, so presumably the workers from across the street won't have to go too far to get up with someone.

Personally, I wouldn't be too sad if the plant closed as the smell can be teriffic at times, but I understand they do make an effort to help people in recovery and with other issues into the work-force, so I hope nobody loses a job if it happens.

The Burger King on this site closed in 2011 and was razed to make way for this building. PDQ [People Dedicated to Quality] opened here in 2014, so they lasted about ten years. I'm not a chicken person, but I know my sister and nieces liked it well enough, but perhaps not enough other people did, because the chain has closed 8 restaurants in the Carolinas, which out of 61 total storefronts, is a major hit. I see they have also closed two locations in New Jersey, so they are definitely hurting all over.

Here is the Post & Courier on the Devine Street closing.

Commenter Dave reports rumors that a Whataburger will be coming to the site, but as far as I know, these have not been confirmed.

(Hat tip to commenter Larry)

The Bojangles at Cross Hill Market on the corner of Cross Hill Road, Fort Jackson Boulevard & Devine Street has been razed. The restaurant is to be built back with two drive-through lanes and patio seating. You can read about it on WLTX or at The Post & Courier.

There doesn't seem to be a firm date to expect the new building to be in service.

(Hat tip to commenter Midnight Rambler)

UPDATE 25 June 2024 -- In these pictures from 9 June, the new building is coming along:

1 October 2024 -- Open again:

There is some confusion on the street address of this former Taco Bell on Decker. It was apparently previously listed as 2632 (and I have pictures with that address posted in the window), but is now 2652.

Charlie's Wings was the follow-on in this spot to Feel Goods. I'm not exactly sure when they closed. The last post on their Facebook page is from 2019, but they have Yelp reviews into 2021, so I'm going to put that in the post title.

The reason that I noticed Charlie's was gone is that a new operation is now open in the space, a "Korean style Chicken" restaurant: 92 Chicken.

Here's another Chick-Fil-A teardown/rebuild as they continue to pivot to drive-through centric restaurants. This one is in the Wal-Mart plaza at Forest Drive & I-77.

(Hat tip to commenter Larry)

Hook Fish & Chicken is aparently a chain of sorts, though it's not clear to me that all the locations are closely related. At any rate, they were the follow-on operation in this building at 3600 River Drive to Lamb's Bread. Going by their Facebook page, they moved in January of this year to the row of shops on Colonial Life Boulevard which houses The Melting Pot:

We are more than happy to announce we will be back up and running THIS Saturday, January 14th.
We are coming back stronger than ever with a new partnership with KrabKingz! Come and see us at 1410 colonial life blvd Columbia sc 29210!!
We know you missed us, because we missed you!!!!!!! See y’all Saturday!

I didn't realize when I took the pictures that they had moved, or I would have tried to get some shots of the new location.

Here is The State on the opening in March of 2022.

UPDATE 19 June 2023 -- Here is the Krab Kingz location on Colonial Life:

UPDATE 1 October 2024 -- Hope springs eternal. Now River Grill House Of Pizza. I can't find any online presence, but House Of Pizza restaurants are traditionally run by Greek families:

UPDATE 5 February 2025 -- River Grill & Pizza is now open: