Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

I've never seen the appeal of birds as pets. Herman the parrot was fascinating to me as a kid, but in my mind he was a pet store fixture -- I had no desire to take him home. Parking your car under the wrong tree will illustrate possibly the main reason I feel that way, but different squids for different kids. Parrot Phernalia was a store for those who do like birds, and I would notice it from time to time as I would cut over from Bush River Road to Harbison Boulevard and I'm pretty sure I saw it open very recently. This real estate listing suggests the storefront was built in 1970, so I'm sure it has been other things as well, but I don't recall anything from before Parrot Phernalia (certainly there was nothing with a more memorable name..). Anyway, I guess Polly will have to look elsewhere for her cracker!

UPDATE 9 June 2009:

I turns out this place has moved and is still in business, and sounds like a really nice place (though I still have no desire to have a bird!) -- by all means read The State story found by commenter Kc.

Also, I've added some of the building's previous incarnations to the post title line.

Mimi's Cafe was a very nice little restaurant on the edge of James Island. The building itself wasn't much and parking was impossible, but the setting was extraordinary with the porch and deck looking out over a beautiful salt-marsh. It was a great place to have a meal (with an excellent creme brule for desert!) and then just sit for a while and soak in the atmosphere.

I had seen a report somewhere that Mimi's was closing and that a new restaurant was going into the building, but I figured that if the food were even half decent, there was no way to ruin the location and I planned to go by for lunch on my recent trip to the Holy City.

As it turns out, there is a way to ruin that location -- a kitchen fire. (One of that story's comments suggests the headline: Boathouse Parking Problem Solved...).

Obviously I ended up eating lunch elsewhere!

I hope they can rebuild though the city notice suggests a rocky start.

After Vacation Part 1 a few weeks ago, I'm down in Charleston for the Piccolo Fringe.

I saw The Upright Citizens Brigade tonight and it was a very funny show. They will be playing again during the week, and I recommend you come down and see a few shows. Tickets are available through Publix or ticketmaster.com. The whole fringe schedule is at The Have Nots site, and of course I will be catching the holy city's own national quality improv troupe as well.

Anyway, posting will be light to nonexistant for the rest of the week, though I will try to pop in often enough to keep comment spam down.

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.

Here's another one of Columbia's many seafood restaurants that I'd never been too. LulaBelle's was at the corner of Bower Parkway and Park Terrace Drive, across from Wal-Mart on one side and Ryan's on the other. The interior and exterior clash a bit. The outside is made to look plain and weathered, but the inside decor appears to have been quite nice. The fishing skiff is rather an Oliver's Lodge touch (now that in it's original incarnation was a weathered old seafood place!). I have the feeling that even though LulaBelle's was pretty new, it wasn't the first operation in this building, but I can't bring anything else to mind right now.

This closing must be very recent as several cars pulled in while I was taking these shots.

(Hat tip to commenter O’Reilly)

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Since the times I've needed to rent industrial equipment are few and far between (birth through now seems to be "between"), I'm not sure exactly when this site, off of Fontaine Road between SC-277 and Two Notch Road emptied. I can recall driving by and seeing all the stock arrayed around the place, but not really when I stopped seing that. Doing some googling around, I see that the whole site is available for $450,000. There's also a nice aerial view (that you can click larger) of the place in operation. It's sort of interesting that although SC-277 is built to Interstate standards, and in effect is an Interstate, Fontaine Road doesn't have Interstate exit type businesses. I think this kind of lot on a metropolitan Interstate exit would have something pricy on it.

UPDATE 8 Feb 2010: Hertz moved to I-20 & Fairfield Road and is still around: See the comments. I've added (moved) to the post title.

I was out at Sandhill today -- the first time I had been there during the daytime for quite a while. I took the opportunity after having coffee and a snack at Panera to walk a circuit of the place (except for the Bi-Lo wing) and see how things were going (and get a bit of much needed exercise). There are quite a few empty storefronts, but most (that I haven't already done closings for) seem to have been never occupied rather than closed. Shane's Rib Shack is the exception. I'd say its closing is pretty recent because all the branding, fixtures and decor are still in place. Of course, given that the Beltline location closed recently, I suppose I'm not really surprised this one has gone as well.

UPDATE 8 Sept 2010 -- well it's now an Al Amir bringing that local chain back to the Northeast & Clemson Road:

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.

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I had seen this place on Saint Andrews, and think I saw some of it's flyers, but since I'm not a really big steak fan, I hadn't ever really looked into it. I see that the concept is take out or delivery for steaks instead of pizza, burgers or subs, and that strikes me as pretty odd. First, I have never gotten the appeal of "take out". I'd say that's because I work at home, but even when I spent most of my life at the office, I still didn't want to eat at the house. At a restaurant they have people to bring stuff right to your table and you don't have to wash the dishes or take out the trash. Second, steak seems like an odd take-out item. People are very finicky about it and considering how often burger or pizza topping orders go awry, it's a big leap of faith to expect the right cut and the right degree of doneness when you can't send it back.

I have to say the business strategy being explicated by the door sign seems a bit dubious as well. I want Columbia businesses to succeed and certainly hope they will be back, but it's hard to see how several months without any money coming in will help to make that happen. (And if they remain part of the Steak Out chain, how can they revamp the menu?) It worked for Stevie B's, but more often than not any sign using the word remodeling is followed by a sign that says For Sale.

(Hat tip to commenter Kc!)

Update 24 Jan 2010: Well it seems to me that I can move this one from the "temporary" category to the "not coming back" category. The note from 4 May 2009 promising a "Fall 2009" reopening is still posted on the door, but now an un-picked-up phonebook is on the doorstep and un-picked-up mail is on the floor inside, also as far as I can tell no work at all has been done inside -- everything appears to be in an identical state as to when I posted the original closing.

UPDATE 7 May 2010 -- This is pretty conclusive, I'm afraid:

UPDATE 27 May 2010 -- Now it's up for lease:

UPDATE 19 July 2010 -- Finally got around to taking a picture of the original Steak Out location at 2421 Bush River Road (now Real Mexico):

UPDATE 13 Oct 2010 -- Tony O's Pizza is now open in this building: