Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

This was the Fatz location in Camden. As of 10 September 2023, there is still muzak playing on the patio (as was the case for the Florence location. This building is on a nice parcel very convenient to I-20, so I suspect something will move in before long.

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.

What with the recent talk here about Family Dollar closings and the ongoing buyout war over the chain, this store in Greelyville caught my eye as I was going to the beach back in July, and then again with the building vacant as I was going for Labor Day.

I don't know a lot about Greelyville except that one of my childhood babysitters was from there and that I have been driving through it for years. From the 60 through the 80s, the local high school always had some sort of clever message on their roadside marquee-board, but they seem to have gone generic lately. During the same time period, one of the local gas stations had cylindrical above ground gas storage tanks painted to resemble soft drink cans. The place was also home to one of the unfortunate sailors who lost his life in the huge gun explosion on the USS Stark in 1987, and is memorialized on a roadside plaque. There is also the marvelously named "Pearl Whack Park" on US-521 just before the tracks.

And on 29 August 2014, I saw one of the best rainbows ever driving through the area, unfortunately with nowhere to pull off and get a really scenic framing for a shot.

Here's a little barbecue joint (and live venue apparently) in between Andrews & Georgetown on US-521 west of US-17Alt.

It looks as though there were some attempt to rebrand it after Little PaPa's closed.

The pig does not appear to have fully grasped the gravity of his situation..

The middle route from Columbia to the Grand Strand takes you through Manning on SC-261. US-521 joins 261 there, and they run together until just east of Manning where 261 forks North to Kingstree and 521 continues on to Greeleyville.

Historically rest stops between Manning and Greeleyville have been pretty sparse, so perhaps that's why I especially noticed this rather lavish little gas plaza when it was constructed just a few years ago a little East of the 261/521 fork. That, and the fact that any sign with the word "pizza" on it tends to concentrate my attention.

While the right confluence of events hadn't ever happened, I figured it was a pretty sure thing that sooner or later I would be stopping at Tanners. Well, that was true, but not for the reasons I'd anticipated -- I noticed earlier this year that the place, which had started on such a large scale (this wasn't your typical no-name, one-guy, rural convenience store) so recently was well and truly gone.

I don't know if it turned out that US-521 wasn't as major a road as they had figured, but even with gas, pizza, bait and an attached liquor store as draws apparently the traffic wasn't there. LoopNet on the other hand, says they cleared $78,000 and 100,000 gallons monthly, so who knows?

At any rate, the road between Manning and Greeleyville is pretty empty again.

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