Archive for the ‘dollar store’ tag
99¢ & UP (99 Cents & UP), 1945 Decker Boulevard #16: 2010 1 comment
Well, this closing lets me exercise the Cent (¢) sign we discussed just yesterday!
You can't fault this place for locking themselves into anything -- as long as they had one item in the store that was less than a dollar, they were within their operating parameters. Apparently it didn't help. Decker Center is one of a number of little strip malls down the west side of Decker Boulevard, many nowdays run by immigrants -- Decker, in fact, is designated as Columbia's "International Corridor".
According to this PDF 99 Cents had a 2010 business license, but I'm going to say it didn't make it too far into 2010, because I've been noticing the empty storefront for a while now.
Does anyone remember if this is the strip mall that had Columbia's first CD store?
Dollar Discount, 220 Knox Abbott Drive (Parkland Plaza): August 2010 8 comments
This Dollar Discount store in Parkland Plaza has been "for sale" for a good while, in fact I almost did a post on it before, but they seemed to be in full operation while looking for a buyer, so never did. Driving by tonight, I saw from the banner that they are explicitly closing now. I've never been in this store, but apparently Dollar Discount is a franchaise concept with 140 stores over all and three other stores in South Carolina (Pageland, Effingham and Sumter). I've always liked this kind of store as it gives you a feeling of power to walk in with $5.00 in your pocket and walk out with actual stuff. It seems I can always find something or other that I need or want, and I'll bet the prices are even better right now. This particular store appears to also run a shipping operation called The Mail Room, possibly taking up the slack when the contract post office in Parkland Pharmacy closed.
Once when my cousin noticed an old sign for the company her father used to work for still up on an old barn out in the country, she went to see the owner to try and buy it for her father's birthday. I was with her, and the old gentleman owning the place was a talkative fellow with lots of interesting stories (he claimed that Jimmy Doolittle wanted his help in setting up the Army Air Corps during WWII, but the letter got lost coming from Washington DC to rural SC..). When we asked what the population of the little community was, he said something like "One hundred ninety, same as when I was born. We always figured it stayed the same since every time a baby was born, a man had to leave town". Something of the sort seems to be holding for Parkland Plaza since Ace Hardware is re-opening, just as this store is closing..
UPDATE 29 Oct 2010 -- well the store is definitely gone now:
though it is still listed on the Parkland Plaza marquee:
UPDATE 10 January 2012 -- As mentioned by commenter Andrew, this is now a Radio Shack:
UPDATE 4 March 2013 -- Finally got around to taking a picture of the new (well, not so new at this point!) location of The Mail Room in Granby Villiage on the Charleston Highway:
