Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

This space on River Drive has been a number of things since I started keeping track, moving from automative related businesses to restaurants. Lambs Bread was the follow-on here to Vibes, which closed in late 2018. As far as I can tell, Lambs Bread was open into late summer of 2020, and got generally good reviews. There was no real-estate sign on the property when I stopped by, so I'm not sure what is next for this property.

Vibes Restaurant was priming to open when I took those first two shots, apparently in March 2018, for the Dimp's closing. If you click on the street address tag below, you will see that this building has been a number of things over the past decade, with none of them sticking very long. Hopefully Lamb's Bread will have better luck. It's certainly a new concept for what has been mostly a diner.

Dimp's Cafe & Grill was the follow-on to several restaurants here at 3600 River Drive, including at least Buck's Cafe and 3 Point Cafe & Grill. I have not gotten around to eating at any of these so far.

I'm not sure when Dimp's closed, but I drive this stretch often enough that I think I would have noticed it before now if it were any longer ago than January or February of 2018. The place is now Vibes though they do not yet have a sign on the building itself.

UPDATE 21 September 2021: Adding map icon.

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:

I noticed the other weekend that 3 Point Cafe & Grill, the follow-on to Buck's Cafe, on River Drive had now closed and that a new restaurant was in its place: Dimp's Cafe & Grill. That makes three restaurants into this spot since it was remodeled. Hopefully this one will stick around for a while.

UPDATE 21 September 2021: Adding map icon.

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.

UPDATE 21 September 2021: Adding map icon.

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: