Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

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Technically speaking, Waccamaw Pottery was only one store at this landmark dead mall, but the way I recall it, the name was casually used for the whole complex which was centered around it. Back in the 70s and 80s, the outlet mall was a real retail powerhouse on the Grand Strand, and this despite not having a single store that I as a teen wanted to go to. In fact, as I remember it, the place was notorious amongst my whole extended family as a somewhere "grown-ups" liked to go for hours and which we couldn't stand. I remember being in the car with several cousins sometime after my sister had started to drive. As we headed up US-17 towards Myrtle Beach, she suddenly hunched over, gripped the wheel tightly, put on a maniacal expression and announced "This car is going to Waccamaw Pottery and there's nothing you can do about it!"

I can honestly say I don't ever recall buying a single thing here. In fact, I can only recall ever seeing one thing that was even interesting there: In the 70s Playboy printed up a book version of some of their Bo Derek pictorials in advance of the movie "10", and one ended up on a discount table at one of the Waccamaw stores. Of course I couldn't buy it, but it certainly beat browsing festive ice-cube trays or whatever..

Wikipedia says Waccamaw Pottery went under int 2001, which matches more or less what I remember for their Augusta store, but I thought I recalled their "home turf" mall here going under in the 90s. For some reason, outlet malls seemed to go into decline in general around then.

I hadn't really planned on taking these pictures, but I spent the night at the Holiday Inn on the Waterway, and as I got in the car on July 4th, there the mall was and I coudn't resist. Although the place in general is pretty delapidated, with salt spray thick on the windows, deteriorating signage, and some graphitti, there are still some businesses hanging on in the west-most part. In particular, a design operation, a furniture store and a taxi operation. Apparently Hardrock Park is using some rooms in the main area as well (and you can see one of the Hardrock roller-coasters in the background of some of the shots). Some places apparently went under very quickly. You'll notice all the furnishings still in the ice-cream shop, and the Haggar 18 Wheeler (and Haggar history plaques) still in the Haggar store.

The place is still under active scrutiny too. You'll notice in the last picture, there is a security truck reflected in the windows behind me. I could see the reflection, of course, so I stopped what I had been doing, which was leaning suspiciously against the doors while I took some shots through the glass, stepped back and made a show of ostentatiously taking that last picture to make clear that I had a camera and that's what I had been doing. To avoid any pointed questions, when I turned around, I acted like the security guy was just who I had been looking for, and started plying him with questions about the future of the property. He was actually a nice guy and indicated there there were definite plans though he couldn't talk about them yet. We both knew he had made his point without having to say anything about trespassing, and I had plenty of pictures anyway, so I called it a day and headed for lunch.

This car isn't heading for Waccamaw Pottery..

Here's the thing. If you're going to call yourself The Grilled Cheese Company, you ought to have really great grilled cheese sandwiches.

I was feeling pretty low last year with a bad cold (which wasn't getting any better as in the end it turned out to be a sinus infection and to need antibiotics..), and I wanted some comfort food. A good grilled cheese sandwich sounded like it would really fill the bill, so I went out to Sandhill.

I guess what I was subconsciously expecting was some sort of deluxe affair with two or three kinds of cheese grilled between Texas toast. What I got was apparently a Kraft Processed American Cheese Food single between two slices of Sunbeam, and it was a considerable disappointment in a day that was already not going well.

Read whatever you'd like into my judgement given my general maliase and grumpiness that day, but I see the place is now gone, so I'm thinking that even if everyone else liked what they got, they also realized they could do the exact same thing at home with the ingredients they already had.

Antibiotics on the other hand, are great.

UPDATE 15 May 2010: Added full street address, tags.

UPDATE 25 February 2014 -- It's now a kids' gym, My Gym:

UPDATE 10 March 2021: Adding map icon.

Happy 4th everyone!

The Atlantic Twin theater was on Two Notch road across from what is now Dick Dyer Toyota. It was something of an "outlying" theater, neither downtown, nor in Five Points, and I think probably the "Oh, I always forget about that one" location probably played a part in its eventual downfall. The fact that that section of Two Notch gradually became rather down-at-the-heels over the years didn't help either. Nonetheless, The Atlantic was the site of the only movie birthday party I ever had. It would have either been in 1967 for my sixth birthday or 1968 for my seventh. I'd say 67, but IMDB says the movie came out several weeks after my birthday, so either I had a very late party, or the film came back for second-run showings the next year.

At any rate, my mother and father arranged to take two carloads of my little friends (you could never pack cars like that today!) to The Atlantic to see "Dr. Dolittle" with Rex Harrison. At the time (and today) the film was universally panned by critics, and the ability of the studio to secure an Oscar for it is often pointed to as the last time the "studio system" was able to rig the awards. Be we liked it!

If I could talk to the animals --
Learn their languages...
Maybe take an animal degree!

The songs were catchy, and the humor with things like the Pushmepullyou wasn't over our heads, and I think we all got popcorn and drinks. Then we went back to my house and had cake..

Anyway, as I alluded above, some time after that The Atlantic fell on hard times. By the late 70s, it had become a porno-palace, and eventually the building itself was torn down. Today there is some sort of social-services building with a DSS branch there. The actual theater was in the lower part of the parking lot, about where the last picture indicates.

Not a big step forward, you'll agree.

If I spoke slang to orangutans
The advantages why any fool on earth could plainly see!
Discussing Eastern art and dramas
With intellectual llamas
That’s a big step forward you’ll agree!

UPDATE 13 September 2009: Added showtime advertisement from The State, 15 April 1973.

UPDATE 12 April 2010: Added full street address to the post title.

Grices (their sign doesn't use an apostrophe, so I won't either) was a long established open-air market on Huger (that's "You-Gee" for you non-natives) Street downtown betwen Gervais & Blossom. I visited so few times, and those all when I was a kid, that I confess I'm a little fuzzy on their whole concept, but I think they had produce, some plants and crafty things like grapevine wreaths. I know my mother liked to stop there from time to time, but I can't really recall anything specific that she bought.

The sign suggests that they thought their main business was "Fruit Baskets", but this Columbia Star story suggests they were a "produce, flower and accessory market". The story also establishes that they closed in 2006; I would have put the date lots earlier. I guess it goes to show "out of sight, out of mind".

Plato's Grecian Cafe was tucked into a strip mall across the street from Dutch Square; today it's a Personnel company. I went there several times over the years, but it never really clicked for me. I always thought of it mainly as a pizza place, and though the pizza was fine, it was not in the running for Best Pizza in Columbia.

The last time I was there, they had some sort of live music. I can't recall if it were a pop band or some kind of Greek folk thing, but anyway that seemed to be where their focus was that night, and I found the table service really suffered for it. Since my inclination to stop was never strong, I never got around to going back after that, and didn't notice for a while that the place was gone.

UPDATE 2 March 2011: Add full street address and ad from the Feb 1990 Bellsouth Yellow Pages

I didn't know Sarge Frye, though I'm sure I must have seen him out in his yard from time to time. He lived just around the corner from my sister's house, and she mentioned once that she had spoken with him back during the great Forest Acres Flood of the 90s when his property was partly under water. By all accounts, he was a very nice, and capable man and was greatly missed after his passing in 2003.

Of the baseball field which bears his name, Bob Spears of The State says:

Weldon B. “Sarge” Frye, the Michelangelo of groundskeepers, carved the field that eventually would bear his name from an unkempt patch of real estate in the mid-1950s.

The park near the corner of Marion and Heyward streets evolved and so did the Carolina baseball program.

From that humble beginning, the field lasted half a century before being retired this year. I'm afraid I would be fibbing if I claimed to have seen ball games there. Sports are not really my thing, and I don't think I've ever actually watched a baseball game (and have listened to very few since 8 April 1974). Still, the talk of closing the place caught my attention, so I thought I would check it out.

I was afraid that the field might be locked down, but as it turned out, showing up on a Friday afternoon after 5pm, in the summer when all the college kids are on break was a perfect way to have it entirely to myself. I haven't been able to find anything more definite about the future plans for the park than this 2006 story from The Daily Gamecock which says:

The current Sarge Frye Field will be demolished, and in its place will be the athletics offices, a possible hall of fame, academic support facility, sports medicine offices and a new volleyball competition facility.

If that is still the plan, they don't seem to be any hurry to "turn the lights out". It's been more than a month since the final game, but the grass is still cut, and the area still seems kept up.

The sun was at a very awkward angle for many of these shots, so if you see my fingers in the frame, I was attempting to shade the lens a bit, and since the closing-cam isn't SLR, I can't really tell from the viewfinder if they're out of the way or not sometimes.

Oh, and that final game? Let the record show it was the Gamecocks over Tennessee 10-8!

UPDATE 24 July 2010 -- Here are some pictures taken about a year later (13 March 2010):

UPDATE 20 July 2010: Here's a video from The State of the demolition of Sarge Frye Field today.

UPDATE 1 June 2011 -- Here's some pix of demolition work at Sarge Frye and The Roost on 25 July 2010:

UPDATE 10 January 2012: More construction pictures, these from 16 July 2011:

After establishing itself on Divine Street, Al-Amir opened a second location on Clemson Road at Sparkleberry (near the I-20 interchange). At the time, I was working in Augusta, and living in Aiken. Since I spent the weekend in Columbia more often than not, I was very happy about a location I could drive straight through to from Augusta and hit while it was still open on Friday evenings. I really liked the fare at Al-Amir, but it could be a challenge getting to the Divine location if I were running late. In my opinion, the Clemson location was very slightly below the Divine location in quality. The Damascus bread seemed thicker, harder and less puffy and the seating was less quirky and inviting than the wraparound booths in the back of the Divine building. Still, it was completely acceptable, and somewhere I liked going. However, the last time I went there, they were in violation of Ted's Rules for Restaurants #1: Honor your posted hours. I got there at 8:30pm on an evening when they were supposed to be open until 10:00pm and was told: "Well, it wasn't busy, so we closed the kitchen". Shortly thereafter, they closed.

After Al-Amir, there was a short-lived Mediterranean grill of some sort. Perhaps that was Mirage, or perhaps Mirage is the incoming operation which is now hiring. It appears they are keeping the nice fountain that Al-Amir installed. I wonder if the brick oven is still in there?

UPDATE 12 April 2010: Added full street address to post title.

(7 Jan 2011):

11 April 2011:

This Krispy Kreme on US Highway 17 in Garden City had been there since forever (although it was obviously converted from a gas station at some time in the past). We used to badger our parents into stopping there from time to time growing up. It had the interesting distinction of being the only Krispy Kreme store I know of which didn't make its own doughnuts. Honestly, what is the Krispy Kreme concept without the Hot Doughnuts Now! sign? Not that they were stale, there are at least three stores up the road in Myrtle Beach that make hot ones and could supply this store on a same-day basis.

From the note, it appears that the whole "dead plaza" area around this store is to be re-developed, which w accounts for the Krispy Kreme and the auto-parts store both losing their leases. I suppose you could say re-development started a few years ago with the new Walgreens in the same block.

I was a bit surprised to see that the new Krispy Kreme location (a few blocks North, still on US-17) still doesn't make its own doughnuts.

UPDATE 3 September 2012: Added pix from 7 January 2011.

UPDATE 26 Jan 2013: Add pix from 11 April 2011.

UPDATE 4 April 2012 -- The place is now open, completely remodeled, as a Verizon store:

Also, the first new Krispy Kreme location mentioned above (north of here on the west side of the road) has now moved across the street to the east side of US-17 and *does* now make its own doughnuts, with the requisite Hot Doughnuts Now sign.

UPDATE 13 March 2025: Updating tags, putting real street address in post title and adding map icon.

I can't for the life of me recall what chain this motel belonged to, though I believe the closing is fairly recent. I'd have liked to walk on back into the property and get some more shots, but the place is "posted" to a fare-thee-well. I'm not sure what the deal is with the place. It looks like they have started a renovation, but there is also a "For Sale" sign, and I can't imagine anyone renovating it on speculation. At any rate, if you need a couch, I think you could get one here fairly easily..

Garner Lane is one of those odd and obnoxious streets that you can only get to by starting down an Interstate on-ramp (in this case the East-bound on-ramp for I-20 from Broad River Road), and to make matters worse, traffic leaving has to get back on the I-20 ramp -- going the wrong way! I don't think I have been down there since Julie's closed. I had never driven all the way to the end before; it stops at a driving range on the river flood plain. (Curiously, nobody was out when I was there). I also see that the Touch of India restaurant from the doomed Intersection Center has moved down there. I wish them luck, it seems like a difficult spot for a restaurant.

UPDATE 25 June 2008: Commenter "Ken" identifies it as a La Quinta Inn, which with that info I am able to verify via google -- I've changed the post title from "Unknown Motel" to "La Quinta Inn".

UPDATE 30 April 2009: It's now open as a Quality Inn