Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

I finally made it out the the break in US-21/Wilson Boulevard the other week. It's not a big break as things go, but as far as I can tell, no work whatsoever has been done on it. I have to admit that this surprises me a little: A US route is supposed to mean something even if they aren't what they were back in the pre-Interstate days.

At this time, Lake Elizabeth is basically a pasture with some streams cutting across it. I am not able to embed a google map for some reason, but if you look at this link you can see an aerial view. It's sort of interesting in that the different zoom levels were taken on different dates. At this zoom: No lake. Zoom in one level farther: Lake!

I did a closing once on the adjacent convenience store. At the time, it was (or was no longer..) an AM PM. Now it is Ez Xpress. For some reason it was not not open on this Saturday evening, but as far as I could tell, it was not defunct.

I don't go down Plumbers Road(*) often. I've been to the travel plaza a few times, which is like stepping into the 70s again, and I've done a couple of closings there, but it has a few things you wouldn't expect to find, like a church and hotel along with the industrial building like this.

According to their site Speedy Pak was founded in Myrtle Beach in 1970 and and provides "expedited deliveries", "white glove service", and "in home deliveries". If google can be believed, they have moved from this I-20 frontage north a block to 201 Mcleod Road.

(*) Anyone know why it's called that?

Not sure exactly when this Blythewood barbecue joint closed, but I don't see any reviews later than 2011. The building is now a restaurant and catering operation called Eve's Southern Gourmet.

(Hat tip to commenter CH Smoot)

UPDATE 6 January 2016: Commenter Beth notes that Eve's is now also closed (though she still caters) so I have added that to the post title, along with Meyers as noted by commenter Mr. BO.

OK, let's enlarge that one and turn it around..

I had never been back in this little office/industiral plaza off of North Main/Wilson at the I-20 interchange. It's a bit hard to figure out how to get down in there at first, but once you do, the place is fairly non-descript, though it does seem to have a pretty high vacancy rate. I can't find an actual street address, but the over all complex is 20/21 Business Center.

From what I can tell, Spirax Sarco is a steam technology company that moved to SC from Allentown after a union dispute back in 1998. Then in 2011, they bought a building in Blythewood and are now located there.

Here's another Wilson Boulevard location. I have no real idea what this was, but noticed as I was driving down the street that the old parking lot for *something* is now being used as an impromptu 18-wheeler pull-off.

The shape of the sign seems vaguely familiar, but I can't really come up with anything concrete, and there is currently no street address posted that I could query.

Judging from google and the sign over the front door, this little convenience store on the North side of Wilson Boulevard rebranded from AM PM Quick Stop to Quick Stop & Go shortly before closing. You can also see from the gas pump that they apparently disaffiliated from Exxon as well, as the only brand on the pump is now XX (though the famous tiger remains).

I forgot to get a picture but there was some sort of business license in one of the left windows dated, I believe from June of this year (2013), so I'm saying this closing was sometime this summer.

It's been a few years since I noticed this, but somehow I never got around to mentioning it: The Pizza Hut attached to the Columbia Travel Center plaza closed up shop a couple of years ago. As I recall, it was not a full Pizza Hut, but one of the "express" type operations.

I suspect it was a highly unpleasant job, but someone apparently climed the sign tower to elide the "Hut" portion of the Pizza Hut placard!

UPDATE 26 June 2023: Updating tags and adding map icon. Also, just noticed I apparently have this Pizza Hut listed twice, once on the Wilson Boulevard address, and once on the Plumbers Road address. Oh well.

North Main Street becomes Wilson Boulevard as it heads out to Blythewood, though perhaps more to the point here, it is also US-21. I noticed this defunct little plaza on the South side of Wilson at the corner with Pisgah Church Road this weekend. There are no numbers on the buildings, but a bit of web searching suggests that this property is 8400 Wilson Boulevard (and is much more extensive than the two buildings in the plaza).

The only business name that comes up is Armstrong Equipment Company which looks to have been a trucking firm, and would, I guess, be somewhere else on the 4 acres. As for the plaza itself, to me the two buildings appear to have been a bar and convenience store.

This Loopnet listing shows the whole property, with the plaza area listed as "under contract". This property valuation seems to be for a home somewhere on the property, but you have to admire the lake name given in the accompanying graphic.

UPDATE 29 October: From the comments, it appears that one of these was a seafood restaurant in the 80s and also one was a bar called Timex Socal Club and Club Rolex so I have added those to "N-21 Plaza" in the post title.