Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

As I was coming home today via River Drive heading towards Two Notch, I ran into this roadblock just across North Main. It looks like perhaps they are doing railroad track work. At any rate, Sunset Drive was completely closed. I'm not sure what the offical detour is -- it was a right turn onto North Main, and I just turned left to go back via Fontaine Road.

Uncle Ned's soul food restaurant was the follow-up operation in this building to Dolo's and Varsity, D'Jasz &JS Renee. I'm not sure when it opened, but sometime after Mid-July 2016. My memory is that Varsity was there for many years, but since then, things have not stuck.

(Hat tip to commenter Toby)

UPDATE 12 March 2018 -- As mentioned by commenter Justin, this space is about to re-open as S & A Seafood Market & Restaurant:

Dolo's was the follow-on operation to Varsity / D'Jasz / J S Rennee near the intersection of Sunset and North Main. As these not very good pictures show, the place is now well on the way to re-opening as Uncle Ned's.

(Hat tip to commenter Justin)

Pretty plainly a service station at one time, this building at the intersection of River Drive, Sunset Drive and Clement Road had most recently been a title loan operation before Buck's Cafe moved in.

I presume that the cafe was associated with Buck's Market catty-cornered across the intersection, but I don't know that for a fact. I believe Buck's opened here in 2014, closed for remodeling around the end of that year and then re-opened in 2015. Somewhere I have some pictures of the restaurant in operation, but as usual, cannot put my hands on them right now.

The follow-on operation to Buck's is the aptly named 3 Point Cafe & Grill which judging from the sign is a "home cooking" type of restaurant.

Hungry hungry hippo..

I've always wondered if this little diner by the North Main Sonic was originally connected with the old North Main Street Varsity Restaurant.

While the Varsity name and pennant have always been there as far as I can recall, J S Renee is fairly recent. Back in the 90s and until sometime in the 2000s, the sub-marquee was D'Jasz which apparently also had a location on Rosewood.

(Hat tip to commenter Justin)

Well, this one is ripped from the headlines -- It seems that on the morning of Thursday 8 March 2012, somebody set fire to Club Crush (aka Crush Gentlemens Club) on River Drive just down from a defunct Cash / Title shop and the old A&P.

OK, I'm jumping the gun on the theory that it was arson, but given the recent history of the club (a woman was shot on 1 March and a tow truck driver was shot at on 7 March), I doubt that it just *happened to catch fire.

Actually I find the story of the woman being shot all the more remarkable in that it recapitulates the most famous incident to happen at this building. In both cases people inside the building were shot by bullets coming in from outside the club. Luckily, the woman is said to not be gravely injured -- in the first incident a man was killed. As I recall the story, the fatal incident happened while the building was occupied by Chastitys Gold Club. It seems that a man (a lawyer in fact!) was attempting to take liberties with a dancer that neither she nor club management would countenance, and the man was thrown out of the club, whereupon he went home, got a gun, came back and fired through the (closed) front door, killing a club employee.

I don't think that Chastitys ever really recovered from the bad publicity, and after limping on for a while, closed in 2009. The building shortly re-opened as another strip club, Savannahs Gentlemens Club (no apostrophies anywhere..) which didn't last too long and was replaced by Club Crush in late 2010 or 2011.

In fact, this building has always seemed to have sort of a revolving door problem. I was amused recently when both The State and The Free Times reported on Richland County mooting a change to zoning rules to close county stripclubs, and both papers seemed to believe that Chastitys was still open (unsurprisingly they noted they were unable to get a comment from the owners about the proposed regulations, given that the club was long gone..). Some other businesses I know of in this building were Coconuts Inc, The Club House and Crockmeyer's,which all sound like night clubs, and Swipe USA which doesn't. (In fact, I'm not sure what that sounds like..).

I'm not sure about Club Crush, but the building itself did not appear badly damaged, and based on history, I predict a club will be open there again soon, whatever the name.

UPDATE 13 December 2013: According to The State the building as been denied a permit to operate as a bar under new ownership, with, I think, the subtext being: this is for all time. To me this seems like visiting the sins of the past into the future..

UPDATE 19 January 2018 -- The place either is operating as or is about to open as Tryst:

Here at the corner of North Main & Sunset Drive is another Columbia area Burger King not serving hamburgers.

However in this case, unlike many cases where a "remodeling" sign is more a fond wish than a hard fact, I think we can expect this store to be back in business before too long as there is actual work underway inside and out.

Heck, even the french fries are being remodeled!

(Hat tip to commenter Andrew)

UPDATE 8 March 2012 -- Repainting has started:

UPDATE 24 October 2012: I've got some pix somewhere, but I shouldn't wait to find them to say that this Burger King is done remodeling and is open again.

Driving down Sunset to North Main the other day, I noticed that King's Chef Chinese Restaurant is closed -- closed and fenced off, to be exact. I'm not entirely sure when this happened, but I drove by a number of times in December and didn't notice anything wrong, so I'm guessing January.

Just from looking at the building, it was evident that it had been a chain fast-food place of some sort before King's Chef moved in, and a glance at my 1997 phonebook confirms that the original tenant was McDonald's. I don't recall when that closed (and don't have the directories at home to research it), but I think King's Chef has been there a good while, so I would guess early 2000s.

King's Chef is not the only re-purposed fast food in the area. Almost directly across the street is a Long John Silver's which has been turned into a TitleMax. (And of course, the Family Dollar next to King's Chef is a re-purposed Eckerd Drugs.)

UPDATE 6 February 2012: Commenter Thomas notes that there was a fire here and that they are rehabilitating the building, so I have appended "temporary" to the post title.

UPDATE 18 September 2012 -- It's open again (and has been for a while):

This vintage looking building, which almost has to have been an old gas station originally, sits at the point where Sunset Drive ends, River Drive jinks west and Clement Road fails to become either of those. It's across from Edna's, Great China Chinese Restaurant and the old A & P in Sunset Shopping Center.

I know that going back into the 60s there had to be more, but currently I am able to google three former tenants, all auto related. I'm using June 2010 as the closing date for Cash Loans for Car Titles because that seems to be when the building went up on the realtor's web site.

I like the building and hope the next owner keeps it. The curved endcap reminds me of the KC Customs building on Augusta Road.

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This building, on North Main at the intersection with Sunset Drive, was obviously a fast-food joint of some kind, but I'm not sure which one. I believe at one time or another, a commenter said it was a Church's Chicken, but the street numbers don't match for that. If anyone can identify it, I will change the post title to reflect that.

Currently, it's a TitleMax/CheckMax which seems to be one of those chains favoring old fast-food locations. Interestingly, directly across the street is another "hermit crab" operation, a Family Dollar which moved into the old Eckerd's.

UPDATE 15 July 2010: OK, based on the comments (and confirmed by the 1998 phonebook), this place is identified as a Long John Silver's and I'm changing the post title accordingly.