Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

"Flowers by DeLoache" is the way I recall the advertising being done when I was growing up, but now this longtime Columbia florist is gone. After a 70+ year run (incorporating Branham's since the 1970s and consolidated since 2011), the owners decided it was time to take one of the offers for the property and retire. You can read the story in The State, or watch it on WLTX or WIS.

For some reason, these pictures didn't come out very well and I meant to go back for some more, but that's not going to happen now, other than getting some post-closing shots perhaps.

This old-style retail storefront is on Society Hill's main drag, next to an insurance agency. As far as I can tell from looking at Google Streetview, it may have been open as late as 2012. You can check there for a view of the "Buttercup" sign, which is no longer present. There is also a nice one taken in 2018 here. The flickr link says that Buttercup Ice Cream started in Hamlet NC in the 1920s and lasted into the 1960s, surviving as Mello Buttercup. Here's one of the whole building from the same photoset, and a much better shot than any of mine.

It's not clear to me if the ice cream operation was part of the flowers, craft & framing business, but it is on that end of the building, and the main sign does call out Coca Cola, and the Pepsi coolers inside, so beverages were also sold there.

This stretch of road does the neat trick of being US-401, US-52 & US-15 all at the same time.

When I took these pictures, I was thinking this spot was PC Corner, but it turned out I had already done a closing on that, and anyway, it was two suites over. This looks to have been The Flower Botique, which has apparently moved to 8816 Two Notch. It turns out I did have a picture of that from a different closing, it's just not a very good one:

(Click through and look all the way to the left..)