Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

This is probably the second most searched for closing, after The Bounty. As with The Bounty, I've held off doing a post because the place is completely gone, I don't have any pictures of it, and I don't have any personal memories to relate.

I was thinking that I could do some research at the RCPL and at least come up with an old Yellow Pages ad to hang a post on, but when I finally got a chance to check it out, I found that The Zoom Flume never had a Yellow Pages entry, at least under any category that made sense to me. In fact, they were only listed in the white pages for two years.

So here's what I know about the waterslide: The Zoom Flume was located at 107 Calvin Drive (unless you believe a city directory entry which puts it at 5959 Two Notch Road), which is a small street off of Two Notch Road in between Arcadia Lakes Drive and Fontaine Road. Calvin Drive starts perpendicular to Two Notch, then turns off parallel to Two Notch and Shakespeare Road and runs behind Freedom Suziki. 107 Calvin Drive is now a vacant lot behind Dixie Trophies, Inc.. The slide would, I assume, have been situated up the hill that elevates Shakespeare Road above Two Notch. Currently, for no reason I can discern, the empty lot is surrounded with a formidable looking 7000 volt electrical fence.

People have talked about The Zoom Flume in the comments sections of other posts from time to time, with the most solid information coming from commenter Captain Dave who said:

The one on Two Notch was indeed “The Zoom Flume”. I remember it well because they were a major sponsor at WZLD-FM where I worked. It’s heyday was the summer of 1979. We gave away free passes all the time. Ithink we tied it in with “The Ramblin’ Raft Race” on the Congaree River.

So that's pretty much it. Not a great post, but hopefully it will provide a place for people who actually went to the Flume to add comments. If anybody has pictures of themselves playing there back in the day, I'll gladly post those as well.

UPDATE 16 Dec 2010: Commenter Tonkatoy sends in this 1984 yearbook ad for Super Slide And Arcade which was apparently another incarnation of The Zoom Flume. It was slated to open in May of 1984. I don't recall that one at all. I've added Super Slide to the post title.

UPDATE 27 April 2017 -- I'm told that if you Facebook, there is a Zoom Flume photo here

Well, it appears that the Po Folks curse has struck again, and the building at 6246 Two Notch will need another new tenant. The phone is not yet disconnected (just constantly "busy"), but it seems that the Moore For Less used car dealership is gone. I would think that in this economy, used cars would be a sure bet, but perhaps the overall bank mess has affected financing, or people are holding on to what they have and not even getting new used cars...

UPDATE 13 March 2011 -- Well, in the last week they've knocked down the building and cleared the lot:

UPDATE 21 April 2011 -- It's to be a Dollar General and construction has already started:

UPDATE 25 June 2011 -- The Dollar General is open:

UPDATE 29 June 2021: Adding tags & map icon.

OK, here's something a little different for a Friday evening: Ads and jingles I saw and heard growing up. You may have had a different mix if you listened to different stations. Some were for local firms, some for national ones. I wish I could convey how catchy some of these jingles were, but I don't have any recordings, and I'm sure not going to try to sing them here!

Marion Bunside Dodge:

Mar-i-on is the name to remember,
7201 on the Sumter High-Way!
M-- "More Service"
A-- "Able to Serve You"
R-- "Real Value"
I-- "something something!"
O--"something something!"
N--"something something!"
Today!

Commercial Office Furniture:

Your next desk
Wil come from C-O-F!

The Captain's Kitchen:

Come to The Captain's Kitchen for 'Treasures of the Sea'!

The whole Carpet Wholesaler's series of TV commercials with Nevin Broome and Joe Pinner: "Save! Save! Save". My favorite though was the one where Joe comes upon Nevin who is tied up.

Joe: What happened Nevin!?
Broome: My competitors tied me up, Joe. They don't want folks to SAVE! SAVE! SAVE!
Broome: Untie me Joe!
Joe: I don't think so, Nevin (filches cigar from Broomes shirt pocket and walks off set).

McDonalds:

McDonalds is your kind of place!

which we always rendered:

McDonald's is your kind of place.
They steal your parking space!
Hamburgers out your nose,
French Fries between your toes!

And don't forget those groovy shakes
They're make from polluted lakes!
McDonalds is your kind of place.

Burger King:

Hold the pickles, hold the lettuce,
Special orders don't upset us!

The Tons O' Toys elf:

With tons of toys for girls & boys,
Toodly-oop!

Time For Sounds a daytime ETV program which ran while I was in elementary school. The hostess had a "magic chalk board" which was drawn with a music stave and which would play whatever notes she wrote on it. There was also a semi-animated classical re-working of "Pop Goes The Weasel" featuring "Super Weasel" which she played several times (or we just saw that episode several times). The main thing though was the opening theme which though it had no lyrics I always heard as It's really time for sounds, it's really time for sounds!

Ellison Insurance:

The El-is-son, The El-is-son,
Insurance agency, INSURANCE AGENCY!

The Contenential Sound girl:

Sounds real good!

Kaminer Heating & Air (sung in 1940s close harmony, like the Modernaires or Merry Macs):

Put comfort in your home
The Kaminer way.
Call Kaminer,
(boom, boom)
Right away!

Koolies:

Koo-Koo-Koolie
Orange Koolie
Lemon Koolie
Koolie Fruit Punch
Koolie in the morning
Koolie at lunch
Natural fruit flavors
Orange... lemon... PUNCH!

UPDATE 18 April 2024 -- Turns out that the fruit punch was Coolie not Koolie, and I finally found the commercial:

UPDATE 16 May 2010 -- The Kaminer jingle can be heard at the end of this commercial:

Well, you can't say they didn't make an effort at this Wal-Mart outparcel on Garners Ferry road. This building originally opened as a Fire Mountain Grill, which was explained to me once by a friend with contacts in the food industry as the brand Ryan's corporate used to move back into markets where they felt the Ryan's brand had been tarnished by the local franchisees.

I always felt that Fire Mountain was a bad name since it invoked images both of volcanic tropical islands like Hawaii and of heat and spiciness, none of which had anything to do with the food served. At any rate, they ran it as that for a few years, then transitioned it back into a Ryan's, which didn't last long at all.

The building looks quite impressive, especially when viewed end-on and from below, as when you walk in from Garners Ferry. Currently it's for sale. The sign doesn't mention that you get all the fixtures, but that seems to be the case -- they are still in there at any rate.

As an aside, and appropos to nothing, I parked in the lot at Aldi across the street from Ryan's while taking these pictures. I decided as long as I was parked there, I would go in -- What a weird and unpleasant place!

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This Sears Service Center used to mail out "lawn mower tuneup" cards every spring, and I took my mower there several times. In fact they mailed out one this spring and I was considering it though I ended up using the AARO Rental Center on Two Notch instead.

Really, when I think about it, I'm not sure why the place lasted as long as it did. Sears at the mall certainly has the space in the auto bay to do that sort of repair work there if they want to, and I'll bet the same is true of K-Mart as well -- there really wasn't a good reason for having three seperate buildings on Parklane.

I notice that Sears still refers to Columbia Mall rather than Columbia Place -- good for them!

UPDATE 29 February 2020: Add tags, map icon.

It appears that China Dragon restaurant on the corner of Farrow Road and Beltline Boulevard is gone. When I took these pictures, it was after the return date stated on the vacation sign, but the phone had not been disconnected, so I held off posting. Now the phone is cut off and when I drove by this evening, there were a couple of cars there with people who seemed to be looking at the property (though there is no "For Sale" sign).

I never ate at China Dragon but the building has been there forever, and stuck in my mind as a kid because of the rocky exterior. Since we went down that way so seldom, I had a poor mental model in my mind of exactly where it was, and would always be surprised when I saw it again.

The building design is clearly the same as this much restauranted building on Decker Boulevard, so going by the comments there, it was probably originally a Popeye's Chicken.

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I've written about D's Wings a couple of times before. The short version is that it's a local chain with a surprisingly large menu (including good grilled cheese sandwiches and raw fries!) that has gone through a rough patch over the past couple of years.

I think this location, on Columbiana Drive just past Columbiana Center, closed at about the same time the Blythewood and Clemson/Sparkleberry stores did, which was around October last year. I don't know the ownership structure of the chain, but I would speculate that there are several owners because other D's locations (Beltline & Parkland Plaza for instance) continue on.

If you've followed this blog for a while, you've come to know one of my photographic weaknesses, and I indulged it fully the evening I finally stopped by this location.

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This one is a bit of a surprise. Since this location outlasted the Columbia Mall location by several years, I figured it was safe. On the other hand, Columbiana Drive has lost both a D's and a Smokey Bones recently, so there may be some stress on the area I'm not aware of -- the only thing I can think of is that it's a pain to get to either from Harbison (two lights from I-26, I think) or Lake Murray Boulevard (a left turn if coming from I-26).

Not being a great rib fan, I never visited this location, but it looks to have been a nice building. The left side appears to have a second story -- was there seating up there or just office space?

(Hat tip, um, just about everybody, but I think Tom was first).

UPDATE 19 September 2022: Editing tags and adding map icon.

When the sun is just right, you can look at the "tower" at the north-west corner of St Andrews Center and almost read the outlines of the lettering that has been taken down from the top. If you actually could read it, it would say The Clusters of Whitehall.

The way I remember it, at one time, The Clusters of Whitehall was a very tony place. It seemed to me that many of the shops had radio ads on the old WIS radio, and when the announcer would sonorously intone "...located in The Clusters of Whitehall", it sounded as though he might as well be saying "...located on Rodeo Drive".

Times change and areas go up and down. Saint Andrews Road as a whole has certainly seen better times, and The Clusters were really convienient neither to I-20 nor I-26 as traffic in the area increased and more stop-lights were added. By the 1980s, The Clusters were in decline.

I'm not really sure of the original store roster (we rarely went to that side of town at all) but I think they had a Fresh Market as sort of an upscale anchor. This report says that as of December 2000, The Clusters were only 55% occupied and that a new call center and Tuesday Morning would bring them up to 94% occupied. It also gives a partial list of former stores: Heavenly Ham, Nocturnal Home Diagnostics, Gregory's To Go, Gold Leaf Gallery and Avant Gardener.

After that, google turns up another hit for the property being sold to Ziff Properties Inc in April 2006. There is another story from The State that was widely linked, but is no longer generally available. There is enough text left in the google hit, however, to say that by May 18 2008, the place was being referred to as "the former Clusters of Whitehall", leading me to guess that the new name St Andrews Center was probably coined in 2007. Currently while the place doesn't appear in any terminal distress, it is obviously now a lower rent type operation than before with correspondingly lower expectations for the quality of tenants and level of occupancy.

Finally, I was always confused about The Cloisters of Whitehall vs The Clusters of Whitehall. I haven't made a deep study of the matter, but my googling for this post suggests that the Cloisters is a real-estate subdivision in the area while the Clusters was the mall.

UPDATE 27 January 2023: Adding tags & map icon, adding the full street address in the post title.

Here's another Eckerd's that didn't survive into the Rite Aid era. This one is at the intersection of North Main and Sunset Drive and is now a Family Dollar. Not related to the store, but I've always disliked this intersection because just after it crosses Main, Sunset narrows to one lane with very little warning. I move into the left lane before crossing, but it seems as though someone always gets caught by surprise and wants to merge suddenly into my lane.

UPDATE 10 August 2020: Add map icon, update tags.