Archive for the ‘out-of-area’ tag
Brookgreen Gardens Nights Of A Thousand Candles 2024, Brookgreen Gardens (Grand Strand): 1 December 2024 no comments
My trip to this year's Nights Of A Thousand Candles was one of the coldest in quite a while. Last year the Smores setup seemed like one of those things you do at the Fourth of July because the kids like it, but the chocolate is melting everywhere -- this year that was not a problem, and the heat from the firepits was very welcome! In fact, my fingers were going numb on the camera controls, something which hasn't happened for a good few years now.
I wasn't expecting the traffic to be particularly bad for a Sunday show, but in the event it took an hour to make my way from the start of the lineup on US-17 to the parking lot. There were a few visible changes this year: The Garden Of The Muses is under construction, so there were no lights at a spot which has has some quirky setups over the years, the indoor model train setups have added a Hooterville layout, and the main Christmas tree is lighted again after giving it a few years off to recover.
The event runs weekends through New Years, so if you happen to be in the area, but sure to check it out!
Chianti South, 2109 US-17 (Little River): 2024 2 comments
Here's one I always wanted to visit, but it was very far North from my usual Grand Strand stomping grounds, and the one time I made an actual effort to get there, I found it closed (they apparently were always closed on Monday, and some years Monday & Tuesday). When I heard it was to be sold, I thought I would make one more effort, but as is usual, could never remember to do it when I was on the Strand until it was way too late to drive up there. In fact even the day I took these pictures I was there too late for decent light.
The Sun News has the story on the closing though the details were a bit vague at the time, in particular whether it would close in February of 2024 or July was unknown, and I don't see any follow-up story. What I do see has the ironic detail that the parcel was being sold to a development company who did not care to run a restaurant there, except now the plot is being resold again with nothing apparently having come to fruition, so the restaurant might as well have stayed.
The building looks as though it would welcome a little work, but still seems to be completely tabled & equipped. Even the computer is still up, sort of.
You can see a cached web page here, and Yelp reviews here, and a USA Today 10 Best post here.
Burger King, 1940 8th Street (Fernandina Beach): January 2024 no comments
Hold the pickles, hold the lettuce... And everything else now too.
This Burger King is on 8th Street in Fernandina, which is the main road coming onto the island from the mainland. That makes it a high traffic location, and the store was in a decent area (there aren't any really bad spots on 8th), so I'm not sure what happened here.
Well, OK, apparently the place was just bad: The google reviews are sprinkled with one-star reports, including the classic
I recommend taco bell or starve.
and the Yelp reviews are worse. The question is how does that happen? I get that the franchaise system means local ownership, but at some level corporate has to take care of the brand.
Anyway, as I said it's a decent location, so I would expect something else before too long.
Bennigan's, 3955 West New Haven Avenue (Melbourne FL): February 2023 1 comment
Bennigan's never came to Columbia, but were pretty big elsewhere in the 1980s. I remember that when I was living in Fayetteville, it was a standard place to unwind when the out-of-town crew was visiting to help us set up for field exercises. After that the chain kind of lost its way, and ended up going bankrupt in 2008 which drastically reduced the number of locations.
Nonetheless, things survive & thrive in Florida when they don't elsewhere, and this Melbourne location, on US-192 just East of I-95 opened on 28 January 2016. I always meant to drop in and see if it was as I remembered, but always had some place I would rather eat with my limited time in the area. However this guy did and was a bit underwhelmed.
At any rate the place gave up the ghost in February of 2023, and is now a Mexican eatery, Agave D'Oro. I'm pretty sure I have a picture of it in operation somewhere, and if I find it I'll add it up top.
Island Treasures, 1104 S. 8th Street (Fernandina Beach): June 2024 no comments
During my most recent trip to Fernandina, I noticed that this eclectic antique, book & decor shop on 8th Street had closed.
Over the past seveal years, I got a number of Christmas and other gifts there, in particular some interesting cookbooks, neat umbrellas and blown glass decorations. It was a fascinating place to walk through, though it was a bit out of the way in relation to the main shopping areas of the town. That may have had something to do with the closing, as I never found that many people inside while I made my visits. That's just speculation, the closing could be a retirement or any other reason, I can't seem to find anything about it in the local media. The google reviews point to a closing date sometime around early June.
In the meantime, the shop's Instagram remains up, with some nice pictures, and this is their archived web page from February 2023.
Hope Your Summer Is Going Well! no comments
Hope You Had A Good 4th! 2 comments
I have to embed the video in an odd way because if I put it on youtube, I get copyright strikes because of the DJ music! Anyway, lots of focus issues, but it is what it is...
World Golf Hall Of Fame, 1 World Golf Place (Saint Augustine): 23 September 2023 (Moved) 4 comments
Myrtle Beach Visitors Center, 3717 or 3721 US-76 Marion SC: 2012-ish 3 comments
This decrepit trailer is on the south side of US-76 (the right side if you are heading to the beach) somewhere in the area of Marion not too far past the intersection with US-301. I found it on Google Maps, and set the map icon below with lat/lon coordinates. I never stopped here when it was in business, which it has not been for some years now, but always wondered what services they offered.
Normally, in this sort of situation, I might get up on the deck and try to get some pictures of the interior, but there was no way I was going to have anything to do with *that* deck. It does appear that people have probably been going in from the back, so I suppose it is all stripped.
Looking at Google Streetview suggests that this trailer replaced a small building hosting a fireworks stand around 2008, and shut down sometime after 2012.
The question of what replaced this location is not entirely clear. It could be here:
here:
or even here:
The first option has a similar "I" logo, but the second location has the "gator" character from the sign in the trailer parking lot. The third option looks a bit more upscale.
T.G.I. Fridays, 3202 US-17 Business (Murrells Inlet): 26 March 2024 no comments
Columbia's only TGI Fridays closed back in 2013, with the building to bite the dust sometime this year probably, but the Grand Strand continued to have several locations.
I ate at this one back in January of 2024, and it was fine: A decent burger & fries an hour after most other places were closed. I did notice that it wasn't actually open as late as I expected from a Fridays, and that the customers were pretty sparse, but in general it seemed in good order, and I was surprised to see the signage down on my last visit.
This continues the trend of Inlet Square losing national chain restaurants, some thing that has included Hooters, Applebee's & J. Peters & Spinnaker's. In the case of all of those except the last, local operations have moved in after the chains shut, so we will have to see what happens here. I do know that some sort of redevelopment for Inlet Square is supposedly in the cards (of course that has been the case before with nothing materializing..)