Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

Here's a non-descript little warehouse on Gervais Street between Millwood and Harden that I couldn't ever recall seeing before when I noticed the big for-sale sign out front.

Apparently it was a flower staging area for local florists. The 2009-2010 county property assessments list the owner as "METRO COLUMBIA FLORIST / DELIVERY COOPERATIVE INC" while the "Delivery Pool" language comes from this listing of local florists. LoopNet says the building dates from 1970 while the county link says 1987. To me it looks a bit more 70s-ish than 80s-ish.

It's rather interesting how every-other letter has fallen off of the start of "FLORIST", rendering is as "F O I". I take the "L" as having been part of "POOL" though the spacing looks pretty tight for that.

UPDATE 8 March 2011 -- Hmm. It's been painted, the old logo letters have been taken down, the for-sale sign is off in the corner and the door is open:

UPDATE 13 April 2011 -- It's to be "Detail & Body Works By Frank". Picture a little blurry..

UPDATE 23 December 2011 -- Now open:

I never made it to The Sly Fox which is a shame, because they had "poutaine" on the menu -- something I've wanted to try ever since hearing of it. My understanding is that it is basically french-fries covered with cheese-curds and gravy. The menu on The Sly Fox's web site (already off-line) specified that it was "squeaky" cheese curds too. According to what I've heard about cheese curds, they only squeak when there are fresh, basically only on the first day after, um, curding. This makes me wonder where they could have been getting the curds, as I'm not aware of any local cheese makers, and have never seen cheese curds for sale in Columbia.

Commenter Barb reports The Sly Fox was closed as of 4 Jan. I went by a couple of times this week, and there seemed to be a crew carting stuff out of the place. As you can see, the interior is pretty bare now, and the sign on the east side is down (though the one on the west is still up). The place is pretty much right across the street from Damon's and Paul's, so there is a good bit of vacant restaurant space in the area now.

(Hat tip to commenter Barb)

UPDATE 26 Jan 2011 -- Based on the comments I have added Scott Brothers & Palmetto's. Here is the Feb 97-Feb 98 Bellsouth Yellow Pages ad for Scott Brothers:

UPDATE 27 Jan 2011 -- It turns out I had some pictures of the MacDougall's incarnation as well:

Things move really fast sometimes. I had first written about this little space fronting on Gervais Street just across from the Capitol and above The Whig in a closing for Holey Dough Cafe. By the time I got around to taking pictures of it, all the Holey Dough identity was gone, and the place was in full operation as a sub shop, Jumpin' Jacks Giant Jersey Subs.

The first I knew that that place was gone was when commenter Midnight Rambler mentioned that the next operation (which I had never heard of) had closed!

All I can say about the Gervais Street Deli is that a) it had wi-fi and b) It was, technically, not on Gervais Street...

(Hat tip to commenter Midnight Rambler)

I first wrote about this building back in 2008 when I did a closing for the Greenbax Redemption Center.

Commenter Chief Dan George pointed out recently that one of the follow-on operations in the building Columbia Paint & Decorating closed shop sometime in 2010.

Painting is one of my all-time least favorite activities (only actually scraping the old paint before painting is worse..) so I can't say much about the place, only that it seems to have been a Benjamin Moore paint dealer. (Which, it must be said has a much less cool logo than Sherwin Williams).

The place is currently for rent, and we'll see what ends up there next.

(Hat tip to commenter Chief Dan George).

UPDATE 17 September 2011 -- It's now Cricket Newman Designs:

OK, I need some help with this one. The only things I know about this building are that it seems (there is no address on it) to be at 2250 Gervais Street, it was built in 1945 and is 280 square feet...

Just from the looks of it, I would say that it started life as a walk-up, window-service, restaurant. I know that over the years, I've seen a number of different operations there, but at this point, I can't bring any of them to mind.

In particular, I can't figure out why it seems to have a cairn out front:

Here's another closing in The Vista, this one right on the main Gervais corridor.

I find it a little curious that they are closing on the Wednesday right before Thanksgiving rather than staying open through Black Friday, but I suppose that if you've already planned to close, there's no point in ruining your Thanksgiving to be ready for one more day.

(Hat tip to commenter Larry. Looking at his comment again, it appears that the original plan was in fact to go through Black Friday and into December..)

Commenter O'Reilly first mentioned that the Bull Market( in the old Seaboard Station on Gervais street) was closed back on 10 July 2010.

I snapped the two pictures above on 11 July when I went to take a look. At the time, I took the note at face value and concluded that nothing was going on. In retrospect though, as is often the case, the note was rather optimistic.

By the time I got back to take the rest of these pictures on 4 Sept 2010, the place was long gone. You can see that even the lamps flanking the door were taken down.

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Here's an interesting article in The State from yesterday, Views on District 2, then and now. Be sure to expand the picture of the Vista from 1983. I feel as though I should remember a lot more of that picture than I do. I can't plead youth -- I was 22 years old then.

This place is tucked about a building's length off of Gervais Street, and I was completely unaware of it until commenter Mike D mentioned that it might be closed (and commenter Jeff suggested that the building was for sale).

I haven't verified that with 100% certainty as there was no sign on the door, or other indication of defunct-itude. However, when I took these pictures, the place was locked tight and it was a Saturday, and after their posted opening hours, so I'm pretty sure it's gone. (Also, the last events mentioned on the "upcoming" page seem to be Christmas themed).

The web site pitches it as sort of a networking hub for Columbia's upcoming movers & shakers, with a whiskey & cigars subtheme.

(Hat tip to commenter Mike D).

UPDATE 4 June 2010: Updated closing date in post title to "May" based on comments.

UPDATE 19 Nov 2010 -- Looks like the place is open again. They have events scheduled during Vista Lights:

UPDATE 28 March 2011: Apparently it's not actually open to the general public again yet.

UPDATE 19 October 2011: Ok, now they definitely are open again. The new web site is www.RustColumbia.com.