Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

I don't know much about the Freebird Lounge other than it occupied a very distinctive building on the east side of US-17 south of the Sampit river bridge in Georgetown. I would often note it as I drove to Charleston. In the years when the signage was still up, there always seemed to be a table lamp visible through an upstairs window at night.

The lounge has been closed for some years -- I'm going to say since sometime in the 90s, and I noticed last year that the building itself was for sale. I haven't driven that way in a while, so I can't say what the current status is.

I had noticed this restaurant on US-17 ALT/US-521 heading into Georgetown for years, but never ventured to stop in as I knew nothing about it, and the timing was usually bad. My assumption was that it was a meat-and-three. That appears to be incorrect, as a bit of googling reveals that it was more of a seafood operation (though there was country cooking), and that it may have had its own boat for seafood supplies.

There were no cars the last few times I drove by, and in January of 2019, there was a real estate sign on the place. On my coastal visit over Memorial Day, I noticed that all of the Palmetto Kitchen signage is now down as well. Looking at the place's Facebook page I think that unfortunately the owner passed away and that the place closed not long afterwards.

I was in downtown Georgetown a few weeks ago, having taken a refrigerator part to the very far edge of town and looking to eat al-fresco on Front Street. I had a nice Italian lunch on the sidewalk and then decided to walk around for a few minutes.

I was very surprised to see the Rice Paddy Restaurant closed. This old building, almost across the street from the burned out area of the Georgetown Harborwalk, has been a local fixture for as long as I can remember. In the event, I can only recall eating there once, probably back in the late 1980s. The memory is hazy, but I think it was quite good, but rather fancier than my usual spots.

For now, the web site is still up, and still shows a 2014 award. This Yelp page suggests that it must have closed in or before May 2015.

This is about the only good news to come out of Georgetown in the last few days.

I have been in a number of these businesses, and they are right in the heart of the downtown boardwalk.

The State has the initial story and several followups, including the Governor's visit.

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UPDATE 9 April 2014 -- Here are a few pictures from early January 2014 of the new building, which is now open. (Unfortunately, it was a very grey day):

Here's a little barbecue joint (and live venue apparently) in between Andrews & Georgetown on US-521 west of US-17Alt.

It looks as though there were some attempt to rebrand it after Little PaPa's closed.

The pig does not appear to have fully grasped the gravity of his situation..

The Little Red Barn was a touristy gift shop that operated on US-17 just north of the draw-bridge in Georgetown during the late 1960s. At least that's when I'm guessing it closed -- I would have been around 9 or so years old, so the memories are pretty vague at that remove.

The place was (and is) on the route between Columbia and Pawleys Island, and was a stop we kids always wanted our parents to make, though they did so very infrequently.

Inside, the place was kind of Hammock Shop-lite, and skewed a bit more to the tacky side of roadside tourism, or at least those were the items most interesting to me. I remember bein particularly scandalized by a "belly button lint picker" joke device, and I'm sure there were some "Please Don't Pick The Daisies" type postcards.

Outside, though was the reason the place was really special to us kids: peacocks!

There was a little open shed to the left and behind the actual "red barn" building, which had a number of peacocks behind screen wire (I think that sometimes they would walk around "loose" as well). The thing about peacocks is that they don't feel like showing off very often, but when they do, it's spectacular and given that these were the only peacocks we had ever seen besides NBC, we always wanted to stop on the off chance that they felt pretty that day.

After the Red Barn closed as a gift shop, my memory is that it was vacant for a while, and then in the 1970s, it became the office building for a plant nursery which was run on the land surrounding the building. I think that lasted until quite recently, but is now closed, and the building is again unused (and starting to need a few repairs).

As for the peacocks? Well, I suspect they tasted like chicken.

UPDATE 16 June 2011: Added 14 August 2010 Photoset.

UPDATE 23 May 2012: Updated the closing date in the post title from "1960s" to "1970s" based on commenter Ali's information.

Photoset 14 August 2010.