Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

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Ever since the grocery store at the corner of Centre & 6th Streets closed and turned into an antique mall, probably in the early 80s I'm guessing, this Publix has been my go-to when in Fernandina. Also, Publix "Presto" ATMs are about the only sure thing for not triggering a fraud alert on my debit card when I am on the road, so imagine my surprise last week when I went to get some cash and found the whole store mostly demolished.

According to local reports, the store closed in April and is to be rebuilt in place as a larger store, with Publix Pours kiosk which sounds like more of an internal restaurant than the current deli sections. Apparently the new store is to be like the one in Wellington a place I don't believe I have ever heard of before.

This shopping center, Island Walk Shopping Center is the site of several other posts here, including Kmart and Barberitos.

In the interim, there is a Publix west on A1A a few miles at the new Wildlight development in Yulee.

Hope everyone is having a great 4th Of July!

I didn't know for sure when I made arrangements to spend the weekend in Fernandina that I would hit the Dickens On Centre festival, though I figured there was a pretty good chance of that. In the event, I did, and it was quite nice. They close off Centre Street starting at, I believe, Fourth Street, and also a block of 4th, 3rd, 2nd & 1st on either side of Centre and line the entire thing with craft booths, performance stages and outdoor eateries, the most visible one being the bubble enclosed tables on 2nd Street.

Players in period costumes (well-to-to period costumes to be sure) circulate for photo ops, and there are music and theater events on the stages. There was also a drone show over the harbor, which I was not expecting and was not in a good position to see, but which was nonetheless quite impressive. Centre Street merchants and restaurants stay open during the event as well, and do, I'm sure, quite a good business. Things wrap up Sunday at 3:00, and you can see a good bit of the teardown in the pictures following that.

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Hold the pickles, hold the lettuce... And everything else now too.

This Burger King is on 8th Street in Fernandina, which is the main road coming onto the island from the mainland. That makes it a high traffic location, and the store was in a decent area (there aren't any really bad spots on 8th), so I'm not sure what happened here.

Well, OK, apparently the place was just bad: The google reviews are sprinkled with one-star reports, including the classic

I recommend taco bell or starve.

and the Yelp reviews are worse. The question is how does that happen? I get that the franchaise system means local ownership, but at some level corporate has to take care of the brand.

Anyway, as I said it's a decent location, so I would expect something else before too long.

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During my most recent trip to Fernandina, I noticed that this eclectic antique, book & decor shop on 8th Street had closed.

Over the past seveal years, I got a number of Christmas and other gifts there, in particular some interesting cookbooks, neat umbrellas and blown glass decorations. It was a fascinating place to walk through, though it was a bit out of the way in relation to the main shopping areas of the town. That may have had something to do with the closing, as I never found that many people inside while I made my visits. That's just speculation, the closing could be a retirement or any other reason, I can't seem to find anything about it in the local media. The google reviews point to a closing date sometime around early June.

In the meantime, the shop's Instagram remains up, with some nice pictures, and this is their archived web page from February 2023.

I have to embed the video in an odd way because if I put it on youtube, I get copyright strikes because of the DJ music! Anyway, lots of focus issues, but it is what it is...

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Those of you with long memories may recall that I did posts for Amelia Con in 2014 & 2016. After that, the organizers of that convention decided there was not really the support in the area to go up against other local events. They moved the second instantiation from September to February, got a bigger space, and applied a lot of lessons learned, and I found the second Amelia Con noticably better than the first. However it was apparently not viable enough to do again, and there was never a third.

Amelia Coastal Con is a new show, and as far as I know, has no connection to Amelia Con. However, it was held in the same venue, the town recreation center, where Amelia Con started. As you may know, I require very little urging to go to Florida in February.

I found the show to be smaller than even the initial Amelia Con, a bit less organized (not surprising for a first year), and focused much more on Anime than comics Comics were already not a large part of Amelia Con, but there was no comic content or merchandise at Amelia Coastal Con. That's fine, people are interested in different things. Perhaps a bit surprisingly, there was an old school Trek presence with Neutral Zone Studios, perhaps because they are basically local, having a fully fledged Star Trek filming venue in nearby Kingsland Georgia.

The main space of the Recreation Center was occupied by vendors and gaming tables while the Stage was curtained off and used for presentations. There were also vendors and exhibitions on the ball field behind the center, and food trucks in the parking lot.

New since my last visit (to the Recreation Center, not the town) was a marsh trail, a small bit of which I walked, and which was very nice in February. How it would be in July is yet to be seen.

I bought a few figurines, saw a presentation on cosplay and a Star Trek fan film from Neutral Zone Studios which was really quite good for a non-professional effort (see below), and watched the cosplay contest, which was largely kids this go-round.

Anway, it was a nice way to spend a winter weekend, and from their Facebook, it sounds like they are planning to do it again next year (though there are no details).

Le Clos was a little French restaurant in a 1906 cottage just across the street from the Hampton Inn in Fernandina Beach's historic waterfront district. I'm not a big French cuisine fan (at least for main dishes), but the pasta looked very good, so I stopped by one night and can verify it was excellent, along with (as you would expect) great bread, and a fantastic creme brulee.

I was surprised then on my most recent visit to see the place with the sign down and stripped internally. At first the story seemed rather clear-cut as described here: The owner decided to close the place, although she was able to place the staff at other local spots. A thread on TripAdvisor suggests a more confusing story, as does the cafe's web site which suggests it may re-open this fall.

Whatever comes next, it appears the building will need some work.

I wrote in 2016 about the closing of Island Cinema 7 in Fernandina Beach. Somewhat to my surprise, instead of staying vacant, or becoming a dollar cinema, B&B Theaters moved into the spot and the Island once again had a first-run movie theater.

I saw several films there under the new regime, and it was pretty nice. I know I saw one there in December of 2021, but I am currently unable to remember what it was, which is too bad, as it will be the last.

The Fernandina News Leader reports that the theaters closed on 27 January 2021, a little more than a month after I was there last. Apparently the spece is to become doctors' offices, though I saw no signs of that upfit during my visit in May 2022.

As before, the closest theater is now on A1A coming into the Island from Yulee.