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Forest Lake Exxon, 4751 Forest Drive: 1 March 2008   19 comments

Posted at 12:59 pm in closing

Well, something is going on at Forest Lake Exxon.

I suppose they could just be upgrading the pumps, but then why take down the gas prices from the sign? And usually in an upgrade like that, they try to do it in stages so that there's never a day when they are completely unable to serve customers.

I looked in the window of the convenience store part of the station, and all the food is still in the coolers, and all the tools are still in the car bays, so I'm unsure what's going on. It would be a shame if this place closed as it is one of the last gas stations around which can actually fix anything. I took a slow leak to them a year or so ago, and they had me patched and out of there in under 15 minutes.

I'll check again when I get back in town and see how it turned out.

UPDATE: Commenter Cha Cha says that a "Five Guys" will replace the Exxon.

UPDATE 30 May 2008:

It's official now:

UPDATE 30 June 2008:

They've stripped the Exxon trim from the "patio" roof and have started work inside:

UPDATE 3 Oct 2008 (with pix from 20 Sep 2008):

Still coming along, and looking pretty good.

UPDATE 17 Nov 08:

Well, 5 Guys is now open:

UPDATE 19 December 2017: Add full street address and tags

UPDATE 1 May 2023: Adding map icon.

Written by ted on March 2nd, 2008

Tagged with , , , , , ,

19 Responses to 'Forest Lake Exxon, 4751 Forest Drive: 1 March 2008'

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  1. This corner would certainly look odd without that Exxon there.

    Will

    2 Mar 08 at 3:53 pm

  2. It's been there a good while, that's for sure. On the other hand, the opposite corner has finally stopped looking odd to me without the old "Gulf" incarnation of the building there.

    ted

    3 Mar 08 at 6:19 pm

  3. Forest Lake Exxon has sold out - They are tearing it down and opening up a "Five Guys" burgers

    Cha Cha

    3 Mar 08 at 6:40 pm

  4. Interesting! On the one hand, I'm sorry to see a real "service station" go. On the other hand, I really like Five Guys..

    ted

    3 Mar 08 at 6:57 pm

  5. I'm sad that this closed. I remember going here with my grandmother in the 70's/80's. She'd drive up, the little bell would go off, and a nice young gentleman would come running up to the car and fill up our tank. She's always tip him nicely, and he's check the tires and under the hood every time. Ah, once again, those were the good old days.

    Five Guys is fine, but good lord, do we really need another eating establishment on this already traffic laden road??? The congestion is going to be a NIGHTMARE!!!!!!!!!!! I like Forest Drive/Trenholm just the way it is...PLEASE let's not transform ourselves into a Harbison....but perhaps it's too late :(

    amy

    14 Mar 08 at 1:19 pm

  6. Hard to think of another full-service station in Columbia now. In fact, I cant'..

    I agree about Harbison!

    ted

    14 Mar 08 at 10:47 pm

  7. I pulled in one time and got out to pump my own gas not realizing that it was a Full Service station. I got a small shock when I realized that it was also about .50 more expensive then the 76 across the street because of the extra service.

    geoff

    8 May 08 at 8:52 pm

  8. Yeah, it's just something you don't expect anymore at all -- like Marty and that Texaco scene in the first "Back to the Future" movie.

    ted

    8 May 08 at 10:38 pm

  9. For those of you interested in Forest Acres news/gossip, I was at a City Council meeting last year and heard the council members discussing what to do with money they'd received from Exxon when their gas leaked into the basement (?) of the City Council building! Not sure how much it was or what the extent of the damage was.
    I'm excited about Five Guys, but I am sad this last little piece of gas station history is closed.

    ColaRai

    26 Jun 08 at 8:11 pm

  10. I believe Branham's Exxon across from Dreher High School still offers full service.

    Dennis

    25 Aug 08 at 3:52 pm

  11. Isnt/wasnt the building across the street where 5 guys were originally a Texaco Station?

    Del

    12 Apr 09 at 6:50 pm

  12. That corner store (now a Union-76) was a full-service Gulf station for years. It became a BP when Gulf was bought out. If the light is right, you can still see the painted over "Gulf" logo on the front wall to the left of the front door when the light is right.

    ted

    12 Apr 09 at 9:55 pm

  13. The texaco was on the other corner across from the bank.

    Greg

    31 Dec 09 at 10:53 am

  14. Mike Broom was the owner of this Exxon -at least in the late 80's and 90's. I accidently flipped over my 13' Boston Whaler when I was water skiing in Forest Lake when I was about 14 -I leaned/pulled way too hard and something was screwed up with how the motor was mounted on the boat, it shifted, and that combo caused the boat to flip right on over. We swam it over to the bigger island in Forest Lake, and I think it was the hardest thing I've ever done in my life flipping the damn boat back over so we could swim it back to the boat ramp -and I think I STILL might smell like gas.

    So, anyway, the motor had completely flipped over and was submerged with the prop exposed, and this can ruin the motor permanently. We instantly took it to Mike Broom (my dad had at least a cordial relationship with him), and his mechanics instantly started working on it and they saved it.

    As a results of them really showing legitimate concern and jumping on this, Mike Broom's Exxon was the gas station I filled up at almost exclusively from the time I was 15 (yes, people from other states... we could get day permits at 15) to when I went to college, every time I came home, and every time I've been in Columbia since then up until it closed. I briefly lived in Shandon during about 2007, and I remember going out of my way once or twice to fill up there.

    I hope he made a fortune selling his land because he was a really nice guy -and by the way, I'm an avid connoisseur of Five Guy's bacon cheese dogs, so if anything had to replace it... this is the best I could think of!

    OverMachoGrande

    20 Jul 11 at 10:26 am

  15. there bringing back the Exxon name to New England glad to see it back

    joshua

    9 Feb 12 at 9:06 pm

  16. "Happy" the tiger?

    Peter Holt Hoffman

    9 Dec 12 at 11:39 pm

  17. No, that was the Harden and Gervais Esso, and here.

    ted

    10 Dec 12 at 12:35 am

  18. My dad Jim Sayers owned it from 1965 to 1979 and I grew up there and pumped gas with Hayward Keith and Dan Green who both worked there since the 1940´s.....Really sad to see the old place go....Many great memories there...Many summer working there as well...Also bought my first car at the station and it was a 1972 Buick Skylark. I loved that car. Great memories and it formed me into the man I am today.

    Walter Sayers

    8 Sep 17 at 7:35 am

  19. I remember delivering auto parts to Mike at Forest Acres in the mid-late 90s. Very nice guy. Hope he is doing well.

    CE

    25 Jan 18 at 2:34 pm

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