Columbia Closings   What’s not in Columbia anymore

Commenter Sarah asked about Holt Drive Grocery a while ago, and this is what I've been able to find out. Commenter Andrew pinpointed the address at 2028 Holt Drive, and this is correct. The lot is off Rosewood at the end of South Waccamaw Avenue where it intersects Holt Drive.

The city directory for 1949 notes that 2028 is "under construction", while the city directory for 1950 just lists the name of "Dowdey, David D." for 2028. In 1951 the notation "gro" is added to the entry indicating a notation by the directory compilers that the location is a grocer's. However, the site is not listed in the business section of the directory as a named business at this point. The same goes for the 1952 directory.

In 1953, the city directory entry for 2028 expands to note "Dowdey Dave Distr Co Wholesale Groceries / Holt Drive Grocery". It also adds an entry for 2028½ (2028 1/2) as "Dowdey, David", so presumably, Mr. Dowdey lived on the premesis at the time.

There is some discrepancy between the Southern Bell phone directory listings for Holt Drive Grocery and the city directory listings. In particular, the last phonebook listing for Holt Drive Grocery is in the December 1964 book while the city directory continues to list it by name longer. I'm afraid I did not make my notes as clear as I should have on this point. In 1966 the city directory lists Holt Drive Grocery but adds the name Nu Blen Coffee Company. I believe 1966 is the last year of listing for Holt Drive Grocery, but the format I used admits the possibility that it continued to co-exist with Nu Blen. At any rate, in 1970, the name of Nu Blen changed to Nu Blen Coffee Roasters which continued for 1971. In 1972, the citry directory simply lists the address as "vacant".

Aside from the address the phonebook has little information as the business apparently never bought a Yellow Pages ad (few grocers did). However, in the November 1954 phonebook, the number for Holt Street Grocery was given as "2-8929". By the December 1961 phonebook, it had changed to "AL 6-9630", and in the last listing in December 1964, it was "256-9630".

Is the building pictured here the Holt Drive Grocery building? I can't say for sure, but I suspect that it is, as I can believe such a building was built in 1949.

Commenter Dennis reported this demolition on Rosewood at South Prospect. Unfortunately, I don't have a picture of the original building, a sharply peaked older brick house, but there is still one in Google Streetview, which you will be able to see below if embedding works correctly and you have flash turned on (I ususally don't):

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Google also thinks that this is the web site for the Athena Technologies with an office in the razed building. It's certainly an Athena Technologies, a "geological consulting" firm that does "vibracore sediment sampling", and as the listed address is in South Carolina, I'm inclined to think it is the right one.

(Hat tip to commenter Dennis)

I was driving down Rosewood the other day, looking for a site mentioned in Have Your Say when I noticed the For Lease sign on this building.

Rosewood Beauty Supply is just across Howard street from Rockaway Athletic Club, and is in the same building as the first Acme Comics location. Judging by the phonebooks I have, I think Acme moved to State Street in 2009 , so I guess this store has been there two or so years. Certainly it was already there in April 2010 when I took a picture for the Acme closing (and interestingly seems to have exactly the same collection of window signs then as now).

"No Beatin' Good Eatin'" -- that's certainly a slogan I can get behind, though in the event we never ate at the Copa. This part of town, I must admit, was something of a mystery to me growing up, and to some extent still is.

I didn't really expect this building to still be there, but as it turns out there are a lot of old buildings on Edisto Avenue and in the general vicinity. At least I'm pretty sure it's the Copa building. The ad is from the 1970 Southern Bell phonebook, and this building easily dates from that era, or before.

I'm sure the building has been a number of things since the Copa, but google doesn't really turn up anything except this loopnet listing which suggests it was last a warehouse (and claims a 1980 build date). For a warehouse, it's quite small..

I've always thought of Huddle House as a downmarket Waffle House, which is saying something, but it almost seems like the way Hardee's and Bantam Chef used to be related -- you saw the second in places that couldn't support the first. I'm pretty sure I've been in a Huddle at one time or another, but I have absolutely no reliable memory of such an occasion right now. I am sure I was never in this one which sits at the intersection of Rosewood Drive and Kilbourne Road.

The LoopNet listing suggests that the follow-on operation, one of Columbia's ubiquitous (but not apparently very lucrative) title pawn operations, has been closed at least since mid October 2010.

UPDATE 12 April 2012 -- It's now a Marco's Pizza:

I originally wrote a closing for Doc's Gumbo Grille when it moved from 1115 Assembly street to the old French Quarter Deli location on Rosewood Drive. That closing was on 31 October 2009. Commenter Barb says the new location closed 30 December 2010, meaning the new location lasted just a bit over a year. As I mentioned in my other closing, the menu at Doc's wasn't up my alley, and since this location didn't host any Swimming Pool Qs shows, I never dropped by.

I know the original Keg O' Nails lasted many years in this location, but I don't think The French Quarter lasted very long -- it may be that this is just not a viable location any longer, or it may be that the market is so different from The Vista that the Doc's concept just didn't fit here..

For now, the the Doc's web site is still up with a nice little thank you message.

(Hat tips to commenters Barb & Ben)

This isn't quite the post I thought I would be making. Here's the thing: I remember a local restaurant that was on this side of Rosewood Drive for many, many years. It was on my "someday" list though I didn't get to it and it was torn down after I moved out of town. The only anecdote I can remember about it right now was that in the late 80s, or maybe the 90s, USC had a famous football coach (whose name I can't remember, let's call him Freddie) commit to come coach the Gamecocks. The whole town was in a commotion, and this restaurant put up on their signboard: Freddie heard about our food!.

Then, of course, the Chicken Curse struck, and he reneged on the deal and decided not to come to Carolina -- leaving the restaurant flat-footed for a couple of days with a very ironic sign.

Anyway, I was pretty sure this was the spot, but the only thing I can see before the old building was torn down to put up the Eckerd's which became Rite Aid is a pool hall called Charlie's which tried several times (apparently with success in the end to get a liquor license).

UPDATE 7 Dec 2010: Updated post title to Charlie's Cue & Cushion based on the coments.

Commenter Bill Chisolm has this to say about Eden's Foods:

Anybody old enough to remember the old Edens Food Stores in Columbia and around S.C. They sold out to Winn-Dixie around 1955. I worked for them as did my father.
Several of the old buildings are still standing, among these are the ones on Rosewood Drive, North Main Street, Devine St, Harden St. and I am sure there are others. They were the place to shop for groceries in Columbia during their hey day

Being born late in 1960, I had never heard of the place, but the city directory for 1953 does list eight locations for the store, with this building being one of them. I would say it has been remodeled several times, but it does seem about the right shape and size for an older grocery.

Apparently the company was run by a local family as the city directory also lists

J. Drake Edens President-Treasurer
Joe Edens, Executive Vice President-Assistant Treasurer
J. Drake Edens, Jr., Vice President

I wonder if there is any connection there with Edens & Avant property management?

According to the still extant web site, Art Shack Gallery Cafe started out as a gallery-only in 2005 and added a cafe in 2007. I'm afraid I was pretty much completely unaware that it existed (until I went to take the second picture above in conjunction with the closing for The Daily Grind) and so never ate there.

According to commenter Mike D it was closed as of 19 October 2010, giving it a five year run. Not bad in today's restaurant climate.

(Hat tip to commenter Mike D)

These nine pictures are attempts at HDR. I took a tripod, and set the closing-cam to do 3 exposure brackets (1 "under exposed", 1 "over exposed" and 1 "correctly exposed"). I still have had trouble getting anything reasonable looking out of Qtpfsgui though other folks certainly have. There are just too many knobs and levers for me, at least for now. I did find another free program called Picturenaut, which actually produces nice results with the default settings. The downside is it only runs on Windows.

All the night pictures were taken on 15 October and the day pictures on 24 October. As usual, the fair remains an evergreen experience and if you missed it this year, you should try to catch it in 2011.

Lots and lots of other pictures after the jump. Be warned!

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