Archive for the ‘US-601’ tag
Sub Station II / Laundromat, US-601 St. Matthews: 2000s 7 comments
I noticed this pair of co-located derelict businesses driving US-601 through St. Matthews towards I-26 this Spring.
I wasn't sure at first what the restaurant was, but a close look at the menu board pretty well pins it down to a Sub Station II.
I can't think of any obvious reason why both businesses in this building would have failed at what seems to be more or less the same time. While the restaurant market is fickle, laundromats are places where you must go. I'm guessing early 2000s for the timeframe here, but the building does seem rather enthusiastically vine encrusted, and if the realtor posting the sign does succeed in selling the place, I doubt there's much that can be done beyond knocking the place down and starting over.
Coronet Motel / Circus Room, 2770 McCords Ferry Road: 1980s 4 comments
I probably should remember seeing this place more, as we drove past it on the way to the beach innumerable times while I was growing up. However, I always had my nose in a book, so I was only vaguely aware of the name Circus Room and couldn't have told you where it was. Or, for that matter, *what* it was. At this remove, my understanding is that The Circus Room was actually a circus style tent set up on the grounds of the Coronet Inn at the intersection of US-601 & US-378 in Eastover, and that the tent hosted a restaurant and nightclub. Even in these days of the metro area creeping ever outwards, this is a pretty rural area, and back in the day it must have been even stranger to find a well regarded hotspot here.
What was the attraction? Google pulls up this hint from the 2006 cookbook Cookin' with Cocky II: More Than Just a Cookbook:
Bright Stevenson:
I first met Bright in the Fall of 1956. Bright owned the Coronet Motel and Circus Room nightclub in Eastover. The Circus Room had the finest food and the only mixed drinks in the Columbia area at that time.
The two ads above are from the Sumter Register in 1974 and 1976 respectively.
Amazingly, both Coronet motels still exist and still are in operation, although under different names and ownership. The Eastover location is currently an Anyday Inn and is now combined with a convenience store run in the old office.
The topic has come up in Have Your Say from time to time, and here is what some people have recalled:
Tom
John Merrell
Michael Taylor
She also said the guy who built the motel back in the fifties still drops into the convenience store every day.
jamie
Sid
UPDATE 24 October 2014: Added Yellow Pages graphic from the 1970 Southern Bell phonebook.
Wateree Country Store, US-601 Eastover: 1980s? no comments
Here's an old country store I ran across recently just south of where Bluff Road (SC-48) ends at US-601.
The sign claims it was founded in 1856, which would make it a fairly rare atebellum business still in operation until fairly recently. I think this particular building is much newer than that however -- to me it has kind of a 1920s look. The nearest landark I can find an actuall address for is St. Luke AME Church at 4990 McCords Ferry Road (US-601) which is probably about half a mile south of here.
I don't know when the place closed, but it is now surrounded by a fence so clearly there has been no customer access for a while.