Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

I wrote in 2016 about the closing of Island Cinema 7 in Fernandina Beach. Somewhat to my surprise, instead of staying vacant, or becoming a dollar cinema, B&B Theaters moved into the spot and the Island once again had a first-run movie theater.

I saw several films there under the new regime, and it was pretty nice. I know I saw one there in December of 2021, but I am currently unable to remember what it was, which is too bad, as it will be the last.

The Fernandina News Leader reports that the theaters closed on 27 January 2021, a little more than a month after I was there last. Apparently the spece is to become doctors' offices, though I saw no signs of that upfit during my visit in May 2022.

As before, the closest theater is now on A1A coming into the Island from Yulee.

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Jimmyz moved into this former KFC sometime after 2015, and seemed to do a decent business. I think COVID hit time pretty hard though, as they never reopened for dine-in service after it hit.

I can't find any definite info on the closing date, but it was open in January, and given the still fully equipped state of the place, I think the end of March is probably the logical time to guess.

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This barn-esque building is across the street from Step Saver Gas on the cut-through from I-95 to US-76 in Florence. I became aware of it through driving to the beach that way from time to time, and when I first noticed it, it was one of those SCDA flagged stores that featured local produce and products. I wanted to stop and check it out, but it always seemed like I was in a hurry and in the event I never did before it was gone. Apparently the name was Greenacres Country Market, and there is a site with some nice pictures of it here. It appears they were also a bakery.

Recently I noticed that the signage for that operation was gone and that the building was operating as a soul food & barbecue restaurant which doubled as an event space. Apparently that didn't last too long, and the building is now listed for sale.

I only ate at Milardo's once, probably about two years ago. I was not enthused about the place as both the pizza sauce and the garlic knots were unexpectedly sweet. It might have been nice have a second go some evening and eat on the roof, but in the event, I never got around to that.

It looks like they are setting up for a follow-on operation: Player 1 Up.

I wonder if Barberitos is struggling? As I noted here and here, both Midlands locations of the chain closed some time ago. Personally I liked this Fernandina Beach location better than either of those as it had ground beef as a topping which for some odd reason the SC locations did not (ground turkey is *not* the same thing). My only issue here (as with all locations) is that the chips were so fragile you couldn't really dip with them.

There was also a location a bit further up A1A towards Yulee FL, which also seems to have vanished in the same time-frame as this one. My guess is they were the same franchaise, which according to some google reviews was new ownership after the initial pandemic closure.

I have put 1519 for the street address here as both google & yelp agree on it and it is on the front door. However the actual number painted on the glass on the west side is 1515 for some reason, as you can see.

I took the opportunity Saturday to make my annual trip to Brookgreen Gardens and the Nights Of A Thousand Candles Christmas display. This year was quite warm for a December night, unlike some years in the past, and it was very pleasant to be out and about under the trees with all the lights and candles.

As usual, the big picture stays the same: sculpture, trees & lights, but the details change yearly. This year, I think there was more going on in the Children's Garden for instance, and less in The Fountain of the Muses. I also think that they took some cues from last year's Bruce Munroe installation, which I liked quite a bit, especially in the riverbank area which rather combined the ideas from his frog display and his firefly display in a way.

One very noticable change was that the popular "Holiday Memories & Trains" exhibit has moved across the main concourse to the Rosen Galleries, leaving the old space as a members' lounge.

Though some of the remaining nights are sold out, if you can Read the rest of this entry »

Williston Road is the connector between I-95 and US-301/US-76. Over the years I had noticed this small convenience store from time to time as I was driving the north route to the beach, and recently noticed that it was gone. What I had *not* noticed before, is that it directly abuts a cemetary (Either "Mizpah Cemetary" if you look at the sign or "Hinds Cemetary" if you look at google maps). You could probably infer a pretty good closing date by looking at the gas prices, but all I see from google reviews is that it was already closed "six months ago" (I don't know why google won't put a real date on all their reviews..).

If you look at the google photos it appears that they had a pool table inside, and maybe a bar/food area, but honestly they are too blurry to really tell.

I don't normally grab a lot of pictures that aren't mine and put them up, but in this case they seem to have mainly come from a ".ru" site, so the cork is probably already out of that bottle, and I think it makes an interesting contrast:

I ran across this former Ramada Inn off I-95 exit 157 in Florence a few weeks ago, took a few drive through pictures, drove off, thought about it, and came back for a walk-through.

What I find interesting, apart from the general decrepitness is that the property seems to have operated well into 2020, judging by the COVID signs on the office (where the lights are still on). In fact, many of the rooms still look ready to go, though others, of course, do not. If it did run that late, I would put the closing date as well *after* the swimming pool fill-in date, as that looks to have been done a good time ago given the plants in the hot tub area, and the patchy grass on the pool itself.

Apparently at the end, the manager lived in-house, as there is a second story room with an irritated sign saying no knocking after 8PM as it is not an office.

To me the architecture with its fence around the top of the building and the corner towers looks a bit like a stalag, and I can't imagine what purpose the enclosed huts on top of those served. I would say AC, but the rooms appear to have had standard outside-wall AC units:

I'm not sure what Young's Plantation is, or why it merits a shout-out on the sign.

LoopNet says the property is six acres and at one time was on the market for $495,000, although it is apparently no longer for sale.

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