Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

This location of The Southern Belly opened in the 2015 timeframe, and apparently ran concurrently with their Rosewood location for a while. There was no media notice of this closing, and google still thinks they are open.

Their Facebook page, however, suggests that they were "Gone With The Wind" as of 11 December 2022.

(Hat tip to commenter Heath)

Upstairs Audio had been in this location for as long as I can remember, and I just noticed the other day that it was gone.

I never actually went there, but for years, every time we would go to The Parthenon next door, we would end up parking in one of Upstairs Audio's very ominously marked "Upstairs Audio Only -- Towing Enforced!" spots. Of course it was after hours, so nothing ever actually happened, but it was always in the back of my mind that this could be the night some new guy on the tow service wanted to enforce the letter of the law.

Looking at their still extant web site, the final message is a, in retrospect, worrying one:

BIGGEST Sale Ever
We're changing thew way we do business.
(We are going to start selling by appointment only.)

Judging from the google reviews dated only as "A year ago", it appears that they closed shop sometime around mid 2021.

UPDATE 8 November 2022: Fixed grammar. Added a picture.

When we were growing up, I got the feeling my parents thought paying someone else to wash your car was a bit frivolous. They weren't wrong, but we still went to Constan from time to time, as much, I think, because it was an adventure for us kids as for any other reason. There was Happy The Tiger, and then the whole experience of watching your car go through the automated line, like something out of a futuristic TV show. Not only that, but once you were inside, the lobby had its own odd ambiance with a genuine elevated shoe-shine stand on which you could sit like a king on a throne, and various sorts of ice-cream novelties and candy you could get if your parents were in a good mood.

I don't know that much about the business other than the name came from combining that of the two owners "Connie & Stan", and that they once had a second location on Forest Drive, somewhere around where McAlister's & Bonefish now are.

Once I had a car, I would sometimes take it to Constan when I was back in town for the weekend, but once I moved back to Columbia, I found that Frank's on Forest Drive was more convenient to me. I thought from time to time about going back to Constan for old times' sake, but in the event never got around to it. Folks in the comments are saying that it had gone down hill, but it had been at least ten years since I stopped by, so I really can't say.

Here is the story The State did on the closing.

(Hat tip to commenter Mr. Bill)

This little building on the stub end of Senate Street has been many things over the years, including The Cock Lounge, Ribby's, Gilligan's, Your Mom's House & Good Times.

Harambe's Ethiopian Restaurant was the most recent tenant, and judging by this owner's response to a google review:

Harambe Ethiopian Resturant had flood a week a go everything is gone the Resturant is closed for good

shut down sometime in June or July.

After walking that boardwalk to the front door, I think the first thing the next owner will have to do is tear it up or fix it -- I felt like it could give way at any step.

(Hat tip to commenter Deanna)

UPDATE 9 March 2023 -- Apparently to become The Village:

Here's the flipside of a previous post. The Turning Pointe recently moved to this, the former site of Cribbs Bakery from Forest Drive.

In between those two operations, this was a customer service center for Time Warner Cable which later rebranded as Spectrum. I'm not sure exactly when they moved out, but I'm thinking around 2020.

UPDATE 30 August 2022: Adjusting tags, adding "Moved" to the post title, and adding this picture of the new location:

Pita Pit on Main Street featured here two years ago, and I was unaware at the time that there was a Five Points location.

It appears that this one, just up the hill a bit from Papa Jazz may have closed previously and then come back under new ownership. It looks to have gotten good reviews, but to have closed sometime this Spring. (There is no date on the door sign).

(Hat tip to commenter Deanna)

Since I am not a seafood person, and definitely not a raw seafood person, I wasn't really aware of Sushi Yoshi in Five Points. Online reviews suggest it was a quirky little place with a small staff and idiosyncratic seating arrangements. As nearly as I can tell from those reviews, they probably closed late in 2021, as a January review mentions that a "temporarily closed" sign had been up for several months by that point.

(Hat tip to commenter Deana)

This restaurant/club space which fronts on both Devine & Santee will always be Monterrey Jack's in my mind, but of course it has been many, possibly dozens, of other places over the years. I believe the most recent predecessor to Moosehead Saloon that I have a closing for is Elbow Room but I think I could have missed a couple in between there.

As far as I can tell, this was a country-rock bar with a mechanical bull and a somewhat rowdy atmosphere. I know they got some bad publicity back in 2018 but they apparently continued on into the COVID age until they were caught up in the Great Five Points Bar Bassacre last April.

Substation II was the follow-on operation in this storefront to Jimmy John's, and opened in 2019. I know that going there would be an issue for me because of parking, but I'm not a student without a car. Then of course there was the pandemic, which can't have helped. For whatever reason though, this storefront is now again vacant.

(Hat tip to commenter Larry).

OK, I'm going to say this. The current practice of using lawfare in Five Points, weaponizing South Carolina's idiosyncratic liquor statutes against businesses you don't like, is wrong. Yes, Five Points had a problem, but shooting the patient is not a cure. I guess in this case the fact that there were prior legal troubles was a factor, but the empty storefronts speak for themselves.

The State has more details on this, and on who will still be open.

(Hat tip to commenter Tom)