Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

Here's another Chick-Fil-A teardown/rebuild as they continue to pivot to drive-through centric restaurants. This one is in the Wal-Mart plaza at Forest Drive & I-77.

(Hat tip to commenter Larry)

Village Idiot is the follow-on operation in this storefront to Paulie's Pizzeria, which succumbed in 2009 to a kind of "If we have ingredients today, maybe we'll make pizza" syndrome. I never found the space a good sit-down restaurant in that incarnation, and since I never really warmed to Village Idiot in Five Points, I never tried this location.

The chain remains ongoing, but with the sale of this strip-mall, and the end of their lease coming up, they decided not to continue in this location.

The State has the story here, as does the Free Times here. I'll note that The State describes Forest Acres as ritzy, which is not a word I'd ever associated with our little community before.

The closing date is not firmed up yet, but will be by the end of the year.

(Hat tip to commenter Larry)

I got a late start to this year's Nights Of A Thousand Candles because a) I'm slack, and b) It was raining a bit earlier, but on getting there, found it dry, and the warmest of any of the years I have been there. There have been a number of years that it has been so cold I could barely take pictures since I couldn't feel the camera buttons, but this year I hardly needed a sweater, and the new "S'mores" pits were actually a bit too hot.

The basic theme of candles & lights in trees remains the same, but there are always a few new setups, this year's lighted bottles, for instance to keep things fresh, and I always highly enjoy it. The festival continues through New Years, and if you have a chance to check it out, you really should.

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To my memory, I only ate at Scatori's once, probably about five years ago, and it was fine, though not any better than my normal Strand pizza venues. I did think whenever I heard of it that the name was a bit unfortunate.

The Sun News says that the place had been open 15 years, which would have made it an early storefront in this shopping center, which I still think of as 'new' itself. The chef, who featured on TV's Cutthroat Kitchen has gone on to West Virgina to run a food truck which seems like an odd progression, but I guess that's what he wanted to do.

Both news articles say that Scatori's was sold in January (though it did not close then), but it appears that as of yet, the new owners have not done anything to the interior setup or furnishings.

(Hat tip to commenter Dan R)

A Fuego was the follow-on operation in this spot to Pizzeria Opa, and opened sometime in the fall of 2021. I never visited, and know nothing about Peurto Rican food, but the place got good reviews.

As far as I know, nothing new has been announced for the spot, but given the setup, I would expect another restaurant at some point.

(Hat tip to commenter Heath for the heads-up and the last three pictures above)

Commenter Andrew mentioned back in 2016 that this Kleen Kare location had closing signage up, but I totally spaced on checking it out, and completely forgot about it until commenter Gypsie mentioned that the building was actually For Sale.

Kleen Kare is on an outparcel of Seven Oaks Shopping Center, not far from two other outparcels (here & here) which have also seen business shut semi-recently.

(Belated hat-tip to commenter Andrew, recent tip to commenter Gypsie)

When I went to do a closing for Swiff, I noticed that it was in the old Strictly Running location, and I had never done one for that, so let me do that here as well.

Athletic gear retailer (and event sponsor) Strictly Running moved to 2515 Devine Street some time ago -- Google Reviews suggests around 2016.

Swiff started as a popup store various places around town such as Soda City Market and opened this storefront for locally designed fashion in February of 2022 as reported in The State. The Free Times reports a bit more about the motivation and background for the brand.

Although the store is closed, Swiff remains online.

(Hat tip to commenter Deanna)

As mentioned in the closing for New Brookland Tavern, that operation will be moving to this famous storefront on Harden Street. What wasn't clear to me from the stories (The State & The Free Times) was exactly what was to happen to The Cotton Gin. When I went by Five Points a few weeks ago, it appeared to still be open, and there are recent Google reviews. I still have not seen anything in the media pinning things down, but judging from their Instagram feed, it appears that 25 November will be the last day for The Cotton Gin.

McCary's Bar & Grill (the sign suggests McCary's Sports Bar & Grille, but the Facebook page doesn't support that) shares a parking lot with the phone & loan building that featured here last week.

Judging from the Google reviews, this place probably closed around September of 2023, though given their last Facebook post was 22 June 2023, and there was a shooting there on 28 June 2023, it's possible they did not re-open after that.

I'm not sure how long ago this incarnation started, but the building has been a bar as long as I can recall. The reviews suggest there was not much Irish about it beyond the logo and name at this point, so possibly the ownership changed sometime in the past.

UPDATE 6 December 2023: Adding Kentucky Fried Chicken to the post title based on comments from KC & Brandon.

I wrote about this rather distinctive building back in 2018 when Cromer's moved out. At the time, Cogdill, whose building it was, were still there, though The State suggested they had been trying to move since the 2016 timeframe.

Now the whole building is vacant, and apparently being gutted in both "suites". I am unable to find any details about what happened to Cogdill. They still have a Facebook, but there have been no posts since February of 2020 (about the time the pandemic got going), and their web site now redirects to what seems to be an Asian firm of some sort.