Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

Looks like the Lizard's Thicket remodeling effort that has revamped several of their stores is continuing. This one is at the corner of Knox Abbott Drive & State Street, and was some sort of restaurant before, though not a Shoney's like the Forest Drive and Beltline locations. I've eaten there before, and don't recall any particular building issues, but I guess everything has its time.

UPDATE 8 April 2019 -- I don't have a picture, but this location is open again, and has been for a while.

East Point Academy is a Chinese language (Mandarin) immersion charter school that set up shop here in what I still think of as the Sandy's plaza in 2012.

This location is now their K4/K5 campus, with their elementary campus being on Leaphart road. Apparently they are doing quite well, and are opening a new campus on Chris Road this fall (2018) which will replace this one. You can see the WLTX story on the new campus here.

Mostly I knew Silver City from their old location at 906 Knox Abbott Drive. When I was a graduate assistant every Wednesday (I think it was Wednesday..) when the new comics came out, I would drive from campus to there and peruse the weekly haul.

They moved to this old Hardee's building closer to the river while I was living out of town. I did stop by several times, but by that point, I was getting my fix through a mail-order subscription service, so it wasn't quite the same, though the staff was quite pleasant and I did pick up some stuff.

According to their Facebook page the store's last day was 2 December 2017. When I took these pictures, I had a brief chat with the building owner who said that they were looking for a new tenant in the building as is rather than taking it down and starting over. I was glad to hear that, as these old Hardee's buildings are pretty thin on the ground now. After the razing of the one at Eggroll Station, this is the last in the Columbia area, and I believe the owner said there were only one or two elsewhere.

(Hat tip to commenter Thomas S)

UPDATE 12 October 2021 -- Now The Modern Locksmith.com:

Also adding map icon.

UPDATE 13 August 2022 -- Here is a picture from commenter Jimmy Freeman of the roadside sign for this building when it was a Hardee's:

I first knew this storefront as Silver City Comics back when I was in college in the 80s. I know they were there as late as 1997, so I'm not sure when $2.49 moved in, but it's been a good number of years. I noticed the other week that they are gone and the place is now a Latin (but apparently not Mexican) restaurant.

UPDATE 6 April 2017 -- Hmm apparently I did this post and it was one of the ones that vanished in the database crash. I see it in the wayback machine, and will try to bring in those pictures later. I also see there that they moved from "$2.49" to "$2.79" before moving, so I'm updaing the post title with the higher price and "moved".

Read the rest of this entry »

This new-ish but odd little building is on Knox Abbott in between Taco Bell and Wendy's.

For the life of me I can't remember what it was right now, and am unable to come up with a street number to google it.

UPDATE 16 September 2016 -- This is one of the posts lost in a database crash. Originally it was just titled "Building", but based on the comments as I bring it back, I'm changing the post title to Kleen Kare Dry Cleaner as that what it was to be, though it never opened due to the big crash of the late 2000s.

UPDATE 11 June 2019 -- This is now Carstar auto repair. Not sure if they do the actual work at this location:

Another day, another Radio Shack.

This is the one in Parkland Plaza in Cayce, and is another casualty of the chain's bankruptcy.

UPDATE 14 March 2015 -- Gone:

The first phonebook listing I find for The Tremont Motor Inn is in the July 1958 book where the address is given simply as Hwy No 21 Cayce and the phone number is the old style AL 4-5121.

Later phonebooks would give the address with more specificity as 111 Knox Abbott Drive and update the phone number to 254-5121.

From its inception through 1984 the Tremont did not purchase a Yellow Page ad. In fact, the first one that I saw was in the February 1985 phonebook. This one, pictured above, gave the new phone number as 796-6240, indicating, I believe, a change of ownership.

The last listing I saw for the Tremont was in the February 1994/1995 phonebook. This was followed by the first listing for the Riverside Inn in the February 2002/2003 book, leaving an eight year gap. I presume the building was run under another flag during those years, but I would have to consult a city directory to find what it was, and did not have time on my last visit to the library.

The building was in a great location on a large property close to the river with a park-like expanse of walking paths, and I suppose it was quite nice for many years. Unfortunately, by the time my cousin booked a room in the fall of 2013 (to be close to USC for some seminars), she found it dirty and run-down to the point that she felt unsafe.

The actual tear down was quite leisurely, extending over a period of about four months. On my initial walk-through, I was unsure how much of the property was actually the motel, as there were some buildings out back that appeared to be in use by other businesses, but in the event it appears everything was demolished. For some reason, every time I went out to get pictures, I either got there late just as the sun was fading, or the day would be heavily overcast. There are a few bright shots, but that was the exception.

I'm not quite sure what the green carpeted area by the pool was. It almost looked like the motel had a little putting green, but I didn't see a hole there. Of course now the whole place is more or less a hole...

29 September 2014:

7 October 2014:

29 November 2014:

26 December 2014:

UPDATE 2 February 2015 -- Commenter TahoeChic pointed out an old Tremont postcard on Ebay, which I have bought and scanned, putting the image at the top of the page. Notice the differences in the property from the time of the postcard (which gives the "AL" prefix phone number, so it probably dates from the early 1960s) to now. For instance the big roadside sign was gone, the short brick wall along Knox Abbott drive had yet to be build, there was a canopy in the parking lot, the pool area was not enclosed and had a diving board, and it does not appear the the final front-office building had been built.

Commenter fourlizards found a Tremont key and took a picture, I have added that under the postcard.

Photosets:

Photoset 28 September 2014

Photoset 7 October 2014

Photoset 19 October 2014

Photoset 29 November 2014

Photoset 26 December 2014

Did somebody ram the Cayce Krispy Kreme sign? It sure looks like it to me.

This day spa on the State Street side of Parkland Plaza looks like it was closing down in September of 2012, with new hours posted, and a fairly empty room inside.

By November, the window signage was down (though the marquee was still up), and the whole storefront was vacant.

UPDATE 17 November 2014 -- Now Venus Nail & Spa: