{"id":398,"date":"2009-05-03T23:06:44","date_gmt":"2009-05-04T04:06:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/columbiaclosings.com\/wordpress\/?p=398"},"modified":"2009-05-21T00:14:50","modified_gmt":"2009-05-21T05:14:50","slug":"mailbox-store-2768-decker-boulevard-1980s","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/columbiaclosings.com\/wordpress\/?p=398","title":{"rendered":"Holly Farms Chicken \/ The Mailbox Etc, 2768 Decker Boulevard: 1980s"},"content":{"rendered":"

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This non-descript outbuilding in the ill-fated strip mall which now houses mainly The Comedy House<\/i> was the first \"mailbox\" operation I ever saw outside of the Post Office. I don't think it was actually called The Mailbox Store<\/i>, but that was the gist. The idea was fairly simple, but new (at least to the Columbia market): The store would provide a unified reception service for all your mail and packages. This differed from the service you get with a Post Office P.O. Box in that you in addition to \"mail\", you could also have UPS and other services deliver packages to the address, and a representative would sign for them in your stead. (Nowadays, UPS will just leave stuff on my porch, but I think they used to be more strict). I guess the main appeal was to on-the-go small businessmen who couldn't always stay in one place to receive important packages, and didn't have the staff to detail for it. I had their brochure at one time, but never actually went in the store -- I imagine they also did shipping and packing.<\/p>\n

I'm not sure what happened to this outfit. I think the niche is viable, it's amongst the services the UPS Store<\/i> offers today, but for whatever reason, I think they folded after a couple of years. I believe there was another operation in the storefront before the Army recruiting office that now occupies it set up shop, but I can't recall what it was.<\/p>\n

UPDATE 4 May 2009<\/b>: It appears from the comments that this place was a Holly Farms<\/i> chicken restaurant before the mailbox place, so I have updated the post title accordingly. Apparently Tyson<\/i> bought out Holly Farms<\/i> in 1989 -- up until then, there was a NASCAR event called The Holly Farms 400<\/i> and after that it was called The Tyson Holly Farms 400<\/i> (though according to wikipedia<\/a> that is now also defunct). I am sure however that this Holly Farms<\/i> was gone before 1989 because I can remember the mailbox place from when I was in college.<\/p>\n

UPDATE 5 May 2009<\/b>: The consensus in the comments is that the mail service was The Mailbox Etc<\/i>, so I have changed the post title from Mailbox Store<\/i> to reflect that.<\/p>\n

UPDATE 21 May 2009<\/b>: Turns out there is still a sign for the (long departed) store on the Decker side of the strip, so I have added a picture of it above.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This non-descript outbuilding in the ill-fated strip mall which now houses mainly The Comedy House was the first \"mailbox\" operation I ever saw outside of the Post Office. I don't think it was actually called The Mailbox Store, but that was the gist. The idea was fairly simple, but new (at least to the Columbia […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[13,5,3],"class_list":["post-398","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-business","tag-historic","tag-restaurants"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/columbiaclosings.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/398","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/columbiaclosings.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/columbiaclosings.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/columbiaclosings.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/columbiaclosings.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=398"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/columbiaclosings.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/398\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/columbiaclosings.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=398"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/columbiaclosings.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=398"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/columbiaclosings.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=398"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}