Columbia Closings   What’s not in Columbia anymore

I noticed in The Free Times this week that Simply Savory on Devine Street had closed.

At this point, their web site is still up, and it’s a bit melancholy to see that their contact page lists them as being “next to Ben & Jerry’s and Birds on a Wire“, both of which have been gone for a while themselves.

Also according to that page, they opened on 10 September 2007, so they had an almost three year run, which is not bad for that area and this economy.

I only went in to Savory once. I was actually looking for Ben & Jerry’s which was already gone at that point, but decided that as long as I was there anyway, I might as well check it out. I believe this was before they added their cafe area, and as I’m not a wine person, my impression of the store was that they sold mainly jars of condiments and spreads along with esoteric kitchen items. Given that I was ignoring the wine, I’m not sure how accurate that impression is, but I found it a bit like The Island Gourmet at the Hammock Shops, or Plum Pudding on Laurens Street in Aiken. I believe they had a couple of jars of something open for dipping and sampling, and that it was pretty good but not something I ended up buying.

(Hat tip to Eva at The Free Times)

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I first wrote about Rogers Brothers when they moved from Trenholm Plaza on 17 March 2008. I first wrote about the building at 2912 Devine Street in this closing for Columbia Photo Supply.

I see from the sign on the door that Rogers Brothers has another store in Florence, which I did not know. It seems this section of Devine Street has been volatile over the last few years, with Al Amir and Saffron closing next door and Birds On A Wire, Ben & Jerry’s and Tiffany’s closing across the street.

(Hat tip to commenter Matt.)

I’ve never been in The Bohemian though some of the merchandise I could see through the windows on Sunday looked kind of interesting. The vibe of Devine Street is rather distinct from the rest of Columbia, and somehow, since the days of taking piano lessons at Haven’s music and talking to Herman the bird at The Aquarium & Pet Shop I haven’t really spent much shopping there.

At any rate, it appears The Bohemian has found new digs about half a block towards the Capitol from its former location at 2736/2738 Devine to its new one at 2720 Devine.

This distinctive building is on Beltline between Rosewood and Devine Street. I don’t know if they were the original tenant, but for many years it was an office supply store. I never went there myself, as I was living out of town for most of the time between when I started using “office equipment” (essentially printers in my case) and when I started buying supplies online. I’m pretty sure my sister did find a ribbon for the antique Brother “Diablo 630 compatible!” daisy-wheel printer I set her up with. Those things had a really unique machine-gun type staccato sound they made as the wheel spun and the solenoid hammerd the letters onto the page. I found the fan-fold paper feed almost impossible to adjust correctly such that it wouldn’t gradually mangle the paper..

Anyway, the place was in the 1998 phonebook, but I believe Dollar General has been there pretty much for most of this century.

Well, I believe the only Indian restaurant downtown is now gone. There is no goodbye sign on their door, but the web site is gone, the phone is disconnected, and fairly major work is being done inside. I suppose it could be a remodel, but in that case I would expect a sign to that effect.

As things worked out, I only ate at the India Pavilion once. Growing up my father had occasional “American faculty mentor” relations with visiting foreign students. At one time, this included an Indian couple. They were nice and we had them to the house for dinner a few times (my father duly explained that my sister’s guinea pigs were not being raised to eat..) and they returned the favor by having us to their apartment once. Now, I was a very finicky eater with very narrow tastes, but I was informed by my parents that I would try whatever was offered to us. The only thing I can remember about it is that part of the meal was some sort of chutney, which I thought was the worst thing I ever tasted. I’m sure that it was well made, and that I would probably like it now, but at the time it made such a strong negative impression on me that I never even considered Indian food as an option until I was in my 30s, walking in Charleston and thinking Hey! That smells really good! with no preconception of what type of food it was.

So, anyway, with a childhood dislike, then living out of town and then generally going someplace with parking, I go most often to the Indian places on Bush River & Saint Andrews Road. Still, the time I did make it to India Pavilion it was fine, and it’s a shame to see another longtime (an archived version of their web site says founded 1990) Five Points restaurant go.

(Hat tips to commenters Joel & Luke).

UPDATE 2 Sept 2010 — It’s to be another Pho Viet restaurant:

Well, moving a bit further into Five Points than yesterday, today’s posting is “ripped from the headlines”, which is to say I was reading The Free Times at lunch today and ran across a breaking story by Patrick Wall to the effect that Elbow Room was closed as of Tuesday night. He has an update on his blog that the new operation in that building will honor the existing Elbow Room bookings, which is nice if a bit odd seeming.

I’ve written about this building before when it was Dodd’s / Von Henman’s / Monterrey Jack’s / Agave / Nacho Mamma’s / 5 Points Pub. To be honest, I wasn’t really aware that 5 Points Pub was gone and Elbow Room had moved in. In fact I’m not sure what the last show I saw in a nightclub was. Perhaps The Swimming Pool Qs at Doc’s Gumbo Grille if you want to call that a nightclub. Anyway, I wish the new operation luck — it’s starting to look like anything going into that storefront is going to need it.

I was cutting through the Fort Jackson Boulevard Kmart parking lot the other month, from Wildcat Road to Crowson Road, and noticed something I thought a bit odd: The store’s former auto service bays were up for rent. I guess it makes sense from an economic standpoint (though to date there have been no takers), but it’s kind of depressing, like the Dutch Square Belk closing off most of the third floor. It says not only weren’t we doing well with our auto business, but we don’t think we’ll ever in the future revamp and give it another go — in fact, we don’t think we’ll even need this part of the building again.

This much retailed (and once churched) spot on Cross Hill Road next to the former Kroger Sav-On has never seemed to catch fire for any of its many tenants, most of which I have only a vague recollection of. Aside from all those listed above on the post title, I’m pretty sure it was a menswear shop also at one point, and I either got or thought about getting a suit there. (Something I hate like posion).

This PDF at the City of Columbia website suggests that the city was thinking about buying the building back in the 2006 timeframe and wondering what the absestos and lead paint implications would be, but apparently nothing came of that. The document describes the building as being “used as a former antiques store” — that’s certainly an odd turn-of-phrase, but implies that the building was vacant at that point, with Fletcher’s having been the most recent tenant.

Cross Hill Road is an odd little stretch whose name I never could remember. For years growing up, I thought that Beltline Boulevard ran all the way to Garners Ferry Road instead of turning off towards Rosewood. I can only think that at some point a lot of road work must have been done to make the setup so illogical. (Of course it didn’t help either that until last year, I thought that Garners Ferry started where Cross Hill runs into Devine Street and Fort Jackson Boulevard — I never realized that Devine Street runs all the way to Wildcat).

At any rate, whatever you call it, this lot, along with the Kroger lot, is now Interstate feeder property (which neither was in the beginning), and I expect that eventually a hotel or national chain restaurants will take the real estate.

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I was looking for the place where The Copper Door was on Rosewood Drive last weekend. As far as I can tell, if I have the right address, it no longer exists. However, I did notice while I was in the area this vacant storefront for Southern Pottery. As it turns out, they are not gone, but have moved to Devine Street. Their web site tells the story. I always liked the smell and feel of raw clay, and enjoyed my pottery class at Trenholm Park (though, frankly, I was never any good at it). It’s nice to see someone is still teaching pottery and that we have actual “potters” amongst us muggles in Columbia.

I noticed on the electronic sign you see when you’re at the Harden Street light heading downtown on Gervais a month or so ago that Peter Glenn Ski & Sports was going out of business.

The only time in my life I’ve even almost gone skiing was in, I think, ninth grade when we had a class trip to a North Carolina slope but I got sick and had to give my place to a cousin. It’s probably just as well as I’m sure I would have broken something. All that is to say that I never went into, or considered going into, Peter Glenn.

The window “murals” were nice though!

UPDATE 16 April 2009: Commenter Brian notes that this place used to be “Jeff Price Tennis & Ski”. I have updated the post title to include that. He also notes that the last day of “Peter Glenn” was probably 8 March 2009, and I have made that update to the post title as well.

UPDATE 13 May 2010: Rearranged Post title to put “Jeff Price” first, and added the “& skate”