Columbia Closings   What’s not in Columbia anymore

Compared to your usual auto parts store, this warehouse space on Laurel Street is huge (the property listing says 20,000 square feet). It's also kind of out of the way. I don't know if the business model was that this is where garages got their parts (vs retail customers) or if they had their own machine shop in the warehouse space. Or perhaps Bumper to Bumper and All Pro split the space. At any rate, it's all available now.

I was a little surprised when Google turned this building up as a funeral home. Given the radio tower I had guessed it was some sort of maintainence facility with radio dispatched trucks. Of course, Bostick-Tompkins moved to Colonial Drive in 2001, so it could have been several things since then (though Google doesn't turn them up, and Bostick-Tompkins apparently still owns the building). Also, given that the City Data tax information says the building was built in 1967, and Bostick-Tompkins was established in 1988, it could have been several things before that.

According to this link the Boyne Building was designed in 1900 by local architect James Hagood Sams. I'm sure it has been a large number of things over the years, but the one which gets mentioned here more often than anything else is The Elite Epicurean. Unfortunately, I know almost nothing about it. I believe that for the majority of the time it was open, I was living out of town, and at any rate just the name would have put me off as being "too fancy" (not to mention the iffy-ness of Main Street at night).

All that aside, I can say it was listed in the 1998 phonebook (though with no Yellow Pages ad) and here's what some of you have said:

One of my favorite Columbia restaurants missing from your list was the Elite Epicurean. They had a dish called something like “Island of Scorpios Shrimp”. It was delicious. Also, the stuffed twice baked potato at the Elite Epicurean was very good -- commenter Sarah

Let’s see… Elite Epicurian first became a Northern Italian seafood-focused place called LaVecchia’s, full of fish tanks and aqua neon colors, until around 2002… Then it became Aquagrille, which didn’t last long. After that it has been dance clubs under 2-3 different names -- commenter Dave

I still miss the Elite Epicurian. Lamb Chops Bandit Style! -- commenter Dennis

Club Dreams would seem to be one of those short lived dance clubs commenter Dave mentions -- the night picture is from a Friday night, when one would expect a dance club to be open, so I think it is gone as well.