Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

Well, this has already been mentioned in Have Your Say a number of times, but the Aldi on Saint Andrews Road in Irmo has closed for about a month of remodeling.

Frankly I'm not that big a fan of the chain -- I've only been in one once, and it kind of gave me the willies. I felt like a rat in a maze. Some people swear by it though, and this one should be open again on 22 September.

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I'm not sure when this convenience and gas operation on Farrow Road almost at Beltline closed, but it was long enough ago that the gas pumps are already gone and at any rate I can't find it in any of my phonebooks.

I can say however that it was definitely open as late as December 2008 as you can see from the rather odd linked crime report.

You've also gotta love the real estate summary for the location.

UPDATE 26 March 2018 -- Looks like this place is being razed:

This small Southern breakfast and lunch restaurant opened in April of 2013 as an extension of the original West Columbia location. Given the location and the fact that I rarely make it up in time for breakfast when I'm on my own schedule, I never had an opportunity to stop by though I do hanker for grits every now and then.

According to the linked article, Compton's replaced another breakfast oriented place, so it will be interesting to see if that trend continues with the next tenant.

(Hat tip to commenter James R)

I wondered at this little place when I drove by in early 2012. Apparently it was part of replacing three different former operations on the same property

The Kickin’ Horse stayed empty for a number of years. I always hoped that something fun would pop up there… and now it has. Where the Tackleshop was, there is now The Lowcountry Mermaid (which carries new and used furniture, home accessories, etc.). The small restaurant has been taken over by the Funky Little Kitchen (great burgers!) and I just recently heard that the stages out behind the place have been taken over by Awendaw Sound

The location, on US-17 between Georgetown & Charleston is rather rural, and I wasn't sure that anything as quirky as the shop looked to be could make it there. It appears, unfortunately, that I was right as according to their Facebook page, they closed down sometime soon after 25 April 2012.

I was unsuccessfully trying to find the name of one of the vacant storefonts in this North Main plaza, when I ran into a link showing that corner tenant Silver Dollar Store was closed.

In the event, I had not taken any closeup shots of that suite, because driving by, I could clearly see that at least some of the stock was still inside and so wasn't sure it was gone, hence the long shots. At any rate, from what I can tell, it was a discount store, possibly in the line of those "everything is a dollar" operations.

I noticed this nice little brick office building droving from Lexington to Irmo a few weekends ago. Apparently the clinic has relocated to 121 Park Place Court, which is off of Sunset, just about where Monkey Joe's used to be.

UPDATE 25 September 2015 -- The new location:

As far as I can tell East Bay Gourmet was a Charleston area based butcher chain founded in the early 90s which later expanded into Columbia & Wilmington. An old version of their web site is archived here.

Their local operation was apparently in this Two Notch building until around 2013 after moving from 1465 Bella Vista Drive, down the street from the former Studio 54. They are not listed in any location in the current phonebook, and the web site is no longer active, so I believe the whole chain has closed down.

This little Chinese & Chicken outpost on North Main has been closed at least since March.

Wing Basket is obviously not the first tenant in this building, but the shape of it doesn't suggest anything concrete as to the original incarnation to me.

After after the huge Radio Shack die-off of a year or so ago, the only two Radio Shack locations I could think of that were still open, were this one by Kmart in Lexington, and one in Murrells Inlet. Now that this one is going, I will have to keep my eye on the Grand Strand location.

(Hat tip to commenter James R)

A little googling reveals that this two building + house strip on US-1 in West Columbia was Boss Bull pawnshop.

You can see that there is a little pond out back and interestingly, the lot figures in the West Columbia debate about urban chicken farming:

Chairperson Unthank recognized Mr. Frank Barron
who has lived at 800 State Street for 10 years.
Mr. Barron stated that he has raised chickens
since he was nine years old. He wanted to inform
the public that chickens could be kept in a
sanitary manner. He has helped a young boy set up
a chicken house at 2910 Augusta Road, and invited
everyone to stop by and look at it. Half of the
chicken house is on a sled so that it may be
moved around to allow the droppings to fertilize
the grass. Mr. Barron believes that raising
chickens inside the city should not cause a
problem if the coops are properly kept.

My father always wondered if he had made the wrong choice between chicken farming and English teaching. Or so he said.