Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

Save A Lot was the follow on in this building to Food Lion, and opened in 2011. I'm not exactly sure when it closed (especially since the phone company seems to have stopped leaving me phonebooks), but I'm guessing 2019 is about right given we had several others close within a year or so of that.

At any rate, it has been gone long enough for another follow-on to start up: Ahora Abierto which is a panaderia pasteleria which google translate suggests is a bakery & cake shop.

(Hat tip to commenter Andrew)

ColaDaily reports that this and the Beltline Lizard's Thicket will be closed temporarily due to staffing issues during the COVID-19 crisis. (Old Chicago in the Vista had signage indicating the same issue). They do plan to re-open both stores at some point.

I can only recall eating at this store twice though I have probably been there more. The most memorable experience was when I had been working across the country for a month, and *really* wanted some comfort food, so as soon as I touched down at the airport, I was already planning what vegetables to pick!

(Hat tip to commenter Heath)

UPDATE 5 January 2022: As mentioned in the comments, this closure is now permanent, so adding pictures and updating the post title to remove "(Temporary)":

Well, the story here is the same as for the the Lexington Kmart: It's a Kmart. It's closing.

Unfortunately I didn't have time to go inside, and I was shooting against the sun for the exterior shots, but it looks pretty much as you would expect.

There have been a good number of closures in this general area in the past few years. All of Ryans, Rite Aid, Taco Cid, and Toyota Center come to mind. On the other hand, there is a new plaza around the Walmart at the top of Knox Abbott, so there is some new growth.

(I continue to be confused by the boundries between West Columbia & Cayce. I would have guessed this location to be Cayce, but it seems not.)

(Hat tip to lots of folks)

UPDATE 22 April 2020 -- Commenter Mr. Bill sent in these interiors from the Kmart a while ago, and I managed to misplace them. Here they are now:

You have to wonder how bad things are when The State story on the closing of this motel doesn't even list prostitution as one of the problems:

There have been 169 calls to law enforcement about incidents at the hotel in the past 90 days, city officials said. In 97 of those calls, charges were filed for crimes that included drug trafficking (meth), strong armed robbery and attempted murder, according to the release.

On Sept. 12, Cayce officers filed a report about an alleged rape of a juvenile that occurred at the hotel.

I have actually stayed in a Knight's Inn once. It was somewhere in Florida, and in my opinion was a real dump. The table seemed to have been picked up from the side of a road somewhere and everything was sticky. However, I never felt unsafe, or worried about my car. It was just a very basic, low-end experience.

There is a hearing on 24 October to determine if the business license should be permanently revoked. Whatever happens, I see a re-flagging in the future for this location.

Well this one, across from Piggy Park and where Airport Boulevard intersects the Charleston Highway, was pretty much inevitable, but the closeout has now officially started.

(Hat tip to commenter Zach)

Here's another upfit: The Raceway at the intersection of I-26 & Airport Boulevard. I think I actually stopped here once for gas. I have to say the motel looks like it needs an upfit more than the store does.

UPDATE 27 September 2017 -- This place is once more open:

These are not great pictures of this office building at the corner of Airport Boulevard & Dale Lane as the sun was against me. Google suggests that the place has housed a variety of businesses, probably several at the same time. You can see the sign for HiLights here, which I take to be a hair salon, though I can't quite read the rest of the sign. Perhaps it was associated with the beauth school.

It is hard to see, but it appears that the ground floor of the building has stained glass windows in front, though I see no indication that it was ever a church.

This is the former site of Vegas Sports Bar & Grill and numerous other nightclubs over the years. Looking at the pictures for that closing, it appears that the only change was to put of a new name on the sign.

I have to admit it's a clever name though.

As you can see, it was raining pretty hard, so I did not get very good pictures, but I noticed the For Sale sign on this office building a few weeks ago when I was in the Owens Field area. That's right, Columbia has *two* roads named "Airport Boulevard", something I did not know.

From what I can gather National Distributing Co is a wine wholesaler, which left this building around 2010 for a site off of Bluff Road. They no longer seem to be listed in the phonebook, so I believe they left the Columbia market after that, though they are still in business nationally.

Note the City Roots greenhouse (or whatever you call it, since it is not enclosed) to the right -- I didn't realize this was where they are located.

This little building on Airport Boulevard has apparently been a host of clubs over the years. I rember a few of the names that google turned up, but not all of them.

Most recently it was The Hanger Sports Bar and this Facebook page king of suggests, without ever saying so directly that it closed in late April of 2015.