Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

There are very few google reviews of this Triangle City cellphone store a block or so down from Zesto, so I can't really say when it closed, other than after the summer of 2019. Given every thing, 2020 seems like a reasonable guess.

Apparently this Havoline Xpress Lube was officially C & T Automotive LLC. I don't really have much to say about this closing, as I wasn't really aware this place existed. It's a nice little building with pretty easy access on and off of Sunset (although there is no light). Given the design, whatever comes next will probably be car oriented as well.

(Hat tip to commenter MB)

UPDATE 22 March 2022 -- Now Vivid Finish And Films:

Pelican's was the follow-on in this building to a number of operations, including San Jose and Tomlinson's Used Furniture. They opened here in in 2016, but have now moved downtown to 442 Meeting Street.

In the meantime, this building seems to have been split into two units, with the righthand side now occupied by a financial services company.

Here's another consequence of the Bi-Lo/Food Lion deal: The Food Lion on Platt Springs road has vacated its original location and has moved into the old Bi-Lo site on Emanuel Church Road. As of yet, there is nothing in the building.

UPDATE 10 May 2021 -- Here is the relocated store in its new location at 2916 Emanuel Church Road:

I have written about this spot twice. Once when it was no longer a Quincy's and again when it was no longer a Maurice's BBQ.

After Maurice moved out, the original building was razed, and a new building was run up. It was to be a Blossom Buffet, and clearly looks stylistically similar to the Jasmine Buffet on Two Notch.

However COVID happened, and that fell through (that's my guess, anyway) and now the new, mostly finished, building is for sale.

UPDATE 29 June 2021 OK, mea culpa, this place is now in fact open as noted in the comments. The real estate sign that confused me and made me think the whole building was up for sale without the buffet opening is apparently for prospective retail space on the south side of the building:

UPDATE 2 March 2022: It turns out that Blossom Buffet is a moved and reflagged Happy China Buffet from down the street.

Sunshine Cafe & Catering was the follow-on operation in this Sunset Boulevard storefront to Carolina Cafe. Judging from the google reviews, the last of which was dated from a month ago, they seem to have made it through the worst of the pandemic and then closed down somewhere around the end of March.

Here is a ColaDaily story on the opening of this place from January 2020.

UPDATE 28 February 2022 -- Now Cucinella's pizza:

I've made some pretty bad mistakes about Spanish language businesses here before, but I *think* Latino Express offers a variety of services including insurance, tax preparation and vehicle registration assistance.

It appears that they have relocated from this strip mall on Meeting Street, to 1735 Augusta Rd.

It appears that Always Original Bakery is setting up to occupy this spot.

While I was checking out Bi-Lo, I noticed that this Hibachi storefront in the same plaza was vacant. I can't find out much about it -- there is only one Yelp review, but I'm going to guess it was another COVID-19 casualty.

I thought I was done with Bi-Lo closings, but as commenter Andrew reminded me, I had missed this one in West Columbia just East of I-26. I can only recall stopping at this store once when it was Bi-Lo. I was driving through late at night and for some reason got a hankering for cinnamon rolls, the kind that come in the little aluminum trays with the white frosting on top. I don't think I've bought any since then, but they did hit the spot.

I get the impression that KJ's is using the IGA infrastructure to build their own brand. This one, unlike the one near the flea market, doesn't even have the IGA logo on the front, though I did see IGA products on the shelves. I didn't buy anything, but it looked fine inside, probably a notch above Food Lion.

The plaza where this store is located is unusual in that it doesn't seem to have a name.

Plainly this was some sort of fast food operation before it was a title loan place, but I can't quite identify it from the characteristics of the building. At any rate, North American was there in the last phonebook I have, Feb 2017, and I can't recall seeing the real estate sign out front before, so I'm just going to call the date here as 2020.

UPDATE 20 March 2021: Seems I was wrong about it being fast food -- adding Pearle Vision Center to the post title based on the comments.

UPDATE 3 march 2023 -- As mentioned in the comments, this place has been razed and is being rebuilt as a Freddy's: