Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

As I was leaving Bullet's the other day, I noticed that the Meetze Plumbing office/showroom on Beltline was gone. It had been in the rightmost suite in that building, next to the vape shop. Looking at Streetview, it happened sometime after September 2025, and I'm pretty sure I noticed them earlier this year, so I'm just going with 2026 for at date. They are definitely still in business, and I don't believe this was a dispatch location, so I don't expect any effect for customers.

This building has featured here previously as Nostalgia Antiques & Collectibles, which closed shop in late 2021. I'm not sure when Bullet's moved in, but Streetview confirms it was after August 2023. I can't find an exact date for their moving to 4839 Edmund Highway either, but it appears to have been sometime around May 2026

(Hat tip to commenter Marcel Miller)

Slim Chickens replaced (after a hiatus) another chicken operation Golden Chick which closed in 2019. Slim Chickens opened here in March of 2024 giving them somewhat over two years in operation.

I'm not a chicken fan, but my sister & niece tried it once, were not impressed, and I don't believe went back.

None of the news stories give any reason for the closing though commenter John indicated that he witnessed staffing issues there. Personally, I think that being on the same block as Zaxby's can't have helped.

You can read about the closing at The State or at The Post & Courier.

(Hat tip to commenter John)

Well in some way's this is a complete surprise, and in others it's not unexpected.

To my memory this was the first Moe's location in Columbia, and opened shortly after I moved back to town. When it opened, it was a super place. The crew was well-trained and topnotch-on execution, and the burritos were tasty, well made, and never blew-out. The chips were always crisp and the salsa-bar well stocked, and the ice tea was some of the best I have had in fast-food: brewed strong and always very fresh. The menu names were quirky,but I quickly latched on to the Art Vandelay and I could order that and just let them make it as stated with very minimum customization.

While they place catered to adults to some extent -- for years beer was a beverage option, it also catered heavily to kids with one night every week dedicated to balloon animals and face-painting with special outside providers who would stop by and entertain the always packed dining room. They also had a promotion for regular folks, Moe Monday, a day when burritoes could be had for really quite economical outlays.

In general, I would make this my lunch stop on Mondays & Wednesdays, and life was good.

Gradually things started to change. The initial staff drifted away, and the new hires were noticably not as good. They stoped hiring the face painters and balloon lady, and the food quality started to go down. Sometimes the rice would be crispy, sometimes the lettuce would be wilted, or they would replace the shredded lettuce with romaine, which really doesn't work. The chips were often burnt or chewy and there were long-standing issues with bad smells in the drink machine area. Finally they stopped Moe Monday. For me, the nadir came when I stepped into the store and was the only customer, yet every table was dirty. I had cut my visits in half by that point, and was considering dropping it from the rotation entirely, but there were signs of hope along with more mixed ones. On the plus side, they got back people who had some idea what they were doing and didn't roll a burrito that would fall apart immediately, they also dumped the Freestyle machines that always got my hands wet and always had ice issues replacing them with standard fountains and a chewy ice dispenser. On the minus side, they dropped all the traditional item names and made it an ordeal to specify every single ingredient on your burrito, plus they tended to front-load ingredients, so if you were getting a little of everything, you would end up with a massive burrito that would, again, tend to fall apart. The chips were still uneven, but the quality of the ingredients had come back up some.

On the whole, I would have said things were stablizing, but when I pulled in today, the crew were loading up the trucks with all the mobile fixtures, and carting everything to the Devine location, a store which has its own issues (for instance, there's never any salt), but in general has a pretty good crew.

Oh well, it was nice (for about half the time) while it lasted.

The signage on one side of this corner lot at Covenant & Beltline still says C & J, but I believe that is the result of the latest tenant, A Golden Automotive stripping their branding from that wall when they closed and that the two businesses were not the same.

Google reviews suggest Golden was open into Fall of 2025, but as you can see (if you squint) the building has now been ruled unsafe by the city, and the place is vacant.

I believe the first tenant in this spot after it was built was Bruster's Real Ice Cream, but Hibachi Express has been there quite a while now. I hope it will be there in the future, but the place appears pretty well gutted by the Saturday morning two-alarm fire.

The restaurant was open at the time, but luckily all the crew and customers are safe. So far the cause of the fire is unknown. You can read about it at The Post & Courier or The State or see video at WLTX or WIS.

(Hat tip to Mr. Guy)

Il Bucato replaced Ed Robinson Laundry & Dry Cleaning in late 2020 after the worst of the pandemic, but when running a take-out restaurant still made sense. Looking at the Google reviews, it appears to have had a pretty good run up until the past few months, when a lot of reviews mentioned staffing issues. There was also one gentleman called out by name as exemplary, and then a few reviews later there is one (purportedly) from him, saying that he was moving on.

I can't find anything official online about the closing, but here is an article from ColaDaily about the opening.

(Hat tip to commenter Nobody)

UPDATE 23 February 2026 -- Now State Pizza:

Here is another spot which has succumbed to the curse of 3315 Farrow Road. I don't know anything about it other than their Facebook suggests they opened in September of 2024.

I was driving down Beltline last weekend when I noticed this Dollar Tree boarded up. When I turned around to take a closer look, it was quickly apparent that the place had seen a fire.

In fact it is a bit worse than "a fire". WLTX reports that the place burned on 28 September 2024 and on 17 December 2024.

I came across these pictures recently while I was looking for old Barnes & Noble shots and thought I might as well just post them all now.

This is a walk around & inside Richland Mall (still in the "Midtown" phase at that time) from 13 July 2008. I have left in all the shots, even the blurry and under exposed ones because it's not like I can go back and take better ones now...

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