Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

As of yet the demolition appears to be limited to taking down some parking lot lights and cutting some trees. I would guess not much interior teardown has been done, because I don't see a lot of refuse & dumpsters, but that's just a guess.

I'll keep updating this post as the demolition continues...

UPDATE 14 September -- The dates of this are going to be confusing. I normally date UPDATE notes with the date I make the update (like this note), not the date I took the pictures, but for this post I will mainly be doing the date of the pictures, though I probably got that confused in a number of cases. Oh well.

Here are some nostalgia and exploration videos about Richland Mall that commenters have pointed out to me:

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It seems like Dunkin' as a chain is doing a lot of remodeling now, and the Forest Acres location is now caught up in that. I haven't parked to see if there is a sign with an ETA for re-opening, but it looks like there's a way to go.

I will say that this place has been a bit flakey for a while -- often the lobby would be randomly closed when I would stop by though the drive-through would be open. I suppose it's staffing issues.

Here's another Chick-Fil-A teardown/rebuild as they continue to pivot to drive-through centric restaurants. This one is in the Wal-Mart plaza at Forest Drive & I-77.

(Hat tip to commenter Larry)

Village Idiot is the follow-on operation in this storefront to Paulie's Pizzeria, which succumbed in 2009 to a kind of "If we have ingredients today, maybe we'll make pizza" syndrome. I never found the space a good sit-down restaurant in that incarnation, and since I never really warmed to Village Idiot in Five Points, I never tried this location.

The chain remains ongoing, but with the sale of this strip-mall, and the end of their lease coming up, they decided not to continue in this location.

The State has the story here, as does the Free Times here. I'll note that The State describes Forest Acres as ritzy, which is not a word I'd ever associated with our little community before.

The closing date is not firmed up yet, but will be by the end of the year.

(Hat tip to commenter Larry)

I go to this Groucho's fairly frequently for the BLT (which has a whole lot of B), and like to sit out on the patio, weather permitting.

I hadn't been in a month or so, and noticed no cars and a sign on the door as I was driving by the other day. My takeaway is that they are remodeling, though I would have said the place was in reasonably good shape, with comfortable booths. (Not at all fancy, but servicable and about what I expected from a Groucho's.)

The sign and web site are a bit vague about exactly what is happening, and how long it will take, and I'm not sure what's up with all those books, which I don't think were there before, but hopefully they will be back soon.

I remember growing up, when this store was White's, the book department at the top of the escalator was one of my favorite places to browse as they would usually have a selection of Tom Swift, Jr books as well as random other interesting tomes. The escalator itself was cool because it was so narrow that you could grab each handrail and hoist yourself off your feet while you made the trip, all the while listening to the floor-caller making coded announcements like Five Nine, Five Nine!.

When they knocked the original Richland Mall down, they skipped this building, and it stayed on as White's until the chain went under, or was bought out -- I forget which.

After that, it became Belk, but honestly, this store has been getting ready to close for the past five years or so. It seemed as though every time I went inside, the place had been more hollowed out and threadbare. It started most notably on the second floor, especially after the doors to the far side of the mall were permanently closed and gradually continued up there until finally the escalator was shut down and the whole floor closed off. This is basically the path the Dutch Square store walked down. I can still recall how spooky it was to go up to the men's room there after the rest of the floor had been vacated.

Ahthough I haven't been in since the closing was announced, things were looking pretty sparse on the ground floor as well, the last time I went by. I'll try to get some inside pictures at some point during the process.

Here are stories on the closing from The State, WLTX, and The Post & Courier.

(Hat tip to Mr. Hat)

UPDATE 6 September 2023: Commenter Andrew notes that the place closed today, so I am updating the post title to note that.

It looks like there are some issues, dating to May at this Forest Drive diet center. Since the posted date has passed, and the office is still there, things may be in the process of resolution, but for now at least they remain closed, and google has marked it as permanent.

I noticed that a gym has moved into the corner space at The Shoppes At 4600 and realized I never did a closing for the previous storefront Consign It!. If I have a picture of Consign It! I can't locate it right now, but you can see the marquee on there Facebook page here.

According to this State story, they closed shop here on 1 October 2021, and according, again, to their Facebook, opened a booth at Red Lion on Hampton Street not too long after that, though I'm not sure if they are still there as there.

I believe that Arena Athletic Club is the first tenant in this slot since Consign It! left.

Asian Express started to set up in this old Church's Chicken location in late 2018. Like the one on Broad River Road, which also took quite a while, the crews appeared to be working on it as a side project. For a while, things appeared to be going OK, if slowly, though there were some setbacks as when somebody broke the windows, but it has been months since I've seen any activity there, and as it is more than four years since they started, I am moving the place into the "never opened" category. I'd like to be proved wrong shortly, but it's not looking that way.

One of the very early closings I did on this site way back in January of 2008 was for this location of Tuesday Morning when it closed in Trenholm Plaza. At the time I called the store concept Big Lots by Martha Stewart, and I stand by that. After they left the Trenholm Plaza location, they did not come back immediately, but when La-Z-Boy closed in 2009, they moved into the current building.

Commenter Andrew sends this CNN link indicating that the whole chain is closing down after a second descent into bankruptcy. The article traces the immediate problem back to lost traction during the closings of 2020, but also indicates that the chain had no Internet strategy.

The final sale has started at his location, and has been going on at least a week, so if you want a bargain, you'd best not wait much longer; their Facebook says everything is 40% off.

(Hat tip to commenter Andrew)