Archive for the ‘out-of-area’ tag
Waterfall Action Park, 24607 NC-12 (Rodanthe NC): 2010 no comments
Today's closing comes courtesy of commenter James R who writes (in a note I lost track of for quite a while...):
An out of the area closing, but I thought you might like the
pictures anyway. Facebook says it closed in 2011.
He links to his Google Photo set of pictures of the place, from which the top picture comes. The pictures put me in the mind a bit of Main Beach Arcade in Fernandina Beach.
There is also a Facebook page devoted to the park, with many more photos, including some of it in operation.
Here's what I've been able to find out online (mainly here and here): The park is on Hatteras Island in the Outer Banks, was built in the 1980s, and operated until 2010. At that time, one of the owners passed away, and the place was closed. It was intended to be temporary as the family dealt with the situation, but in the meantime, Hurricane Irene hit in 2011 doing enough damage that the park could not simply re-open. Since that time it has sat vacant with the family putting in just enough money to fence it off and handle the worst safety issues. A local civic association has tried to buy the park property several times, but as of early this year, that had not happened.
(Hat tip to commenter James R)
J Peters Grill & Bar, 139 Willbrook Boulevard Suite G (Litchfield Beach): Mid July 2019 no comments
When I did a closing for the Beltline J. Peters a few weeks ago, I linked to this Greenville News story which led me to believe that the J. Peters locations on the coast would continue unchanged.
This turns out not to be the case as the Litchfield Beach location closed, apparently a between one and two weeks ago. I can see why this location might have been on the block as it is not visible from US-17, and there is a Pawleys Island location directly fronting on US-17 just a few miles south (in the old La Playa storefront).
If this storefront looks familiar, it may be because I did a closing on it in 2014, which it was Carolina Wings & Rib House.
Tara Theater / Tara Conference Center, 14276 Ocean Highway: 27 February 2017 no comments
Palmetto Kitchen, 3330 Highmarket Street (Georgetown): Late 2018 no comments
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.
Rossi's, 9639 North Kings Higway (North Myrtle Beach): November 2017 1 comment
Back in March, I found myself driving to the beach on the North route, and much earlier than usual so that it was still daylight when I hit Florence. Just East of Aynor the road conditions sign was declaring heavy traffic ahead on US-501. I doubted that was really the case so early in the year, but decided to take the way-North route of SC-22 and finally get a chance to hit Rossi's Italian for dinner, something I had been meaning to do for many years, but, generally being on the South Strand, had never gotten around to.
Well, it seems I should have gotten around to it earlier as I found the place gone.
A media search found two stories on the closing, one from WFMB and one from The Sun News.
Apparently Rossi's closed in November of 2017 due to issues with the management of the Galleria plaza, where the restaurant had been located since its opening in 1983. The plan was to reopen at 7753 N. Kings Highway in April of 2018, but for some reason that never happened. I did find one Facebook reference to them pledging to "Try again", but nothing seems to have yet come to pass.
I guess if I have learned anything writing this blog, it's that when you think I ought to get around to that someday, you're asking for trouble if you don't.
Litchfield Fish House, 13060 Ocean Highway (Litchfield Beach): Early 2019 3 comments
I N S Food, 6901 East Palmetto Street (Florence): early 2000s 3 comments
Hardee's, 10391 Ocean Highway (Pawleys Island): December 2018 1 comment
Nights of 1000 Candles, Brookgreen Gardens: 15 December 2018 no comments
After not being able to go last year due to scheduling issues, I was afraid that this year would be a bust as well, since it had rained all day Friday, and was just starting to drizzle again as we pulled into the Gardens. Fortunately, that quickly petered out, and the rest of the night was rain free (though the ground was saturated as I found to my squishy discomfort a few times I steppted off the paths).
The basics of the festival stay the same year after year: Lights in a garden full of beautiful trees and sculpture, but they change it up a bit for each new edition. In particular, this year the boat full of glass balls was new as was the Hogwarts train setting.
I learned something interesting about taking pictures of LED Christmas lights: Even though these are not "blinking" lights, if you push your shutter speed high enough, you may well catch the instant when they are off. This did not happen with the old incandescent bulbs. I'm not sure exactly what the mechanism is. I would have said they go on and off 60 times a second with the AC frequency, but clearly in some pictures one strand is off and another is not.
One thing the preceding days of rain did do was keep the temperature at a comfortable level. There have been years where I could barely work the camera because my fingers were numb, but not this year!
There are two days of the lights left: Saturday 22 December & Sunday 23 December. If you are in the area, you definitely should go. Tickets are at https://www.brookgreen.org/.
(If I get the time, I may go back and add some videos of the train setups).
Cindy's Ole Time Hamburgers, 109 East Bobo Newsom Highway (Hartsville): 2009 9 comments
They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, so at the time, Dave Thomas must have been very flattered.
Shortly after Wendy's came to town, a number of copycat restaurants popped up. They all had young girl mascots after which they were named, had square hamburgers and interiors set up with what at that time was Wendy's signature: One serving line. Unlike Burger King which was famous for letting McDonald's spend a lot of money finding ideal locations and then setting up across the street, these copy-cats tended to set up in smaller towns where there was, at the time, no Wendy's, or at least that's how I remember it. I'm pretty sure I recall chains called Judy's and Penny's (which I think had a restaurant in Georgetown which became El Cerro Grande before they razed it and built their own building). And then there was Cindy's Ole Time Hamburgers, which honestly I don't recall at all. Locating in Hartsville at the time would definitely be the setting up in a smaller market strategy though.
I haven't been able to find out much about Cindy's except that it definitely was a a Wendy's copy-cat and that its trademark was filed in 1976 (about the right time) and is expired. However, the chain still seems to exist in the Phillipines.
This particular location is at the intersection of US-15 & SC-151, and would have been basically in the boonies back in the day. It's still not what you would call a dense area. I may have the street address a little bit wrong, but it's close enough for Google Streetview to show the restaurant.
As you can see from the pictures, nobody else has ever set up shop here. In fact, I believe the place is now what you call a micro-clime which is uniquely suited for various plant life, though not so much for beef.