Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

This Dollar General at the corner of Taylor & Barnwell streets had actually closed once before, on a temporary basis. In September of 2023, they apparently experienced severe staffing issues, and the store was closed for a number of days. After working through that, they are now caught up in the chain's downsizing as it sheds a number of, largely urban, stores. The Post & Courier has the story.

According to that article, the store will be open until 25 April, but it was already looking pretty picked over when I stopped by on the night of 20 March, more than a month out.

(Hat tip to commenter Larry)

Here's another place I was completely unaware of. Apparently Good Life Cafe (or Goodlife Cafe in some usages) started out as a vegan place on Main Street then moved to this Taylor Street storefront last year, and slightly changed ist orientation to a "plant forward" restaurant, a term I had not heard before.

Although they have now closed their doors, several other restaurants with the same ownership remain open, and their closing sign suggests 1624 Bistro on Main as a source for some Good Life favorites.

You can read stories about the closing from The State & The Free Times

(Hat tip to commenter Larry)

Judging from the Google reviews, this place probably closed sometime this Spring. The closing is also marked "Temporary", but we'll see. You might think that sitting across from two campuses of hungry kids would be a good place for a sandwich shop, but I have to say that the Google reviews have about the highest concentration of one star ratings I have seen anywhere, so perhaps you really can't sell sizzle.

I was driving Taylor this evening, and noticed that there seemed to be less signage than usual on Deli Say No More catty-corner (more or less) from The Township. Looking inside confirmed the interior largely stripped.

I didn't actually know the name of this place until I started googling around, which reveals that they have apparently re-named and re-branded and moved to Two Notch near Fontaine. The web site and phone number remain the same.

I had noticed the new business in the old Video Magic & Mags / Nancy's Nook building, but hadn't made the connection.

UPDATE 14 May 2024 -- The Two Notch location:

I was going down to the Greek Festival last weekend, and noticed this Dollar General (in a former Eckerd) on the corner of Taylor & Barnwell streets. was closed.

The sign doesn't give any reason, but assures us that it is temporary. If I had to guess, I would say staffing issues, but of course I don't know.

Asian Express started to set up in this old Church's Chicken location in late 2018. Like the one on Broad River Road, which also took quite a while, the crews appeared to be working on it as a side project. For a while, things appeared to be going OK, if slowly, though there were some setbacks as when somebody broke the windows, but it has been months since I've seen any activity there, and as it is more than four years since they started, I am moving the place into the "never opened" category. I'd like to be proved wrong shortly, but it's not looking that way.

Ironically, the work crew around Busted Plug when I took the first set of pictures on 22 February actually added a bit of verisimilitude to the setting, as it's exactly what you would expect to see working at that faux barricade, but not normally something that was there. From what I could tell, at this point they were sort of figuring out what exactly they were going to do to unearth the Blue Sky installation, which had been in this spot (with beloved sister installation Tunnel Vision) for over twenty years, having been set up in 2001 as an "anniversary gift for the Federal Land Bank".

By the time of the second set of pictures, they had figured it out, and the hydrant was long gone.

I encourage you to follow this link to The State which has a really incredible video of the plug on the move.

The city plans to reinstall Busted Plug *somewhere*, but apparently no actual plan yet exists.

(Hat tip to commenter Larry)

UPDATE 4 September 2024 -- Over a year later, and the parking lot isn't even re-paved so people could park on the Busted Plug spot, but it was urgent somehow to pull it up! If the city has announced any plan for the sculpture yet, I haven't seen it.

UPDATE 8 April 2025: Well, this is sad. The State reports that Busted Plug is just lying untended in a field outside town, with no real plans to do anything with it. Click through for the pictures.

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I first used The Key Shop some years ago when I was having an issue with getting a key cut for one of my cars that actually worked without having to jiggle it all around. I think that by that point all I had was a copy of a copy of a copy and the standard hardware store copy process was just barely working. Anyway, they fixed me up in a few minutes with a perfectly working key.

I was a bit alarmed when I saw the building empty a while ago, but it turns out they moved to a better location at 1815 Barnwell Street and when I recently bought a used car which came with only a valet key, they were able to look at it and cut a full master with no problem so I can now actually unlock the trunk.

Here is a State story on the move.

I am not sure what's next for this little building, it's got good visibility, but the Park Street side parking is a bear.

I had not heard of this Taylor Street wine bar and gallery / artist work space until commenter Justin mentioned that it was gone.

As it turns out, it closed in late 2019, well before the COVID-19 pandemic, which had been my first assumption for the reason. The Free Times had the story here.

(Hat tip to commenter Justin)