Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

I noticed driving back from downtown the other day that Scott Hendley Rugs, on Taylor just down from the tracks, is having a retirement sale. Rugs are one of those things that you either need, or you don't. But if you do, the discount looks pretty good.

This little California themed sandwich shop opened on Taylor street in 2013 following Meatball Express in that storefront. The State did a writeup at the time. You can see their menu with Golden State city inspired items here.

Judging from Yelp, they closed sometime after 20 February 2016.

(Hat tip to commenter Justin)

Commenter Matt points out that the Pope Davis on the corner of Taylor and Millwood has closed.

This was one of those open-air auto operations that you don't see much anymore -- certainly no more in this style are being built. (And some, like this have been knocked down.)

You can stll see the Bundrick's label scar on the awning. The building is still apparently owned by Pope Davis as it has not been emptied, and as yet there is no For Sale sign.

(Hat top to commenter Matt)

What A Field Day For The Heat

If you're the Beach Boys 50th Anniversary Reunion Tour with Brian Wilson to keep Mike Love in check, Mike Love to keep Brian Wilson on an even keel and the second most important catalog in rock history, you can open with the howitzers, drop back to hand grenades and finish with tactical nukes. Otherwise, you'd probably best stick with the standard rock act strategy of opening with small arms, dropping back to firecrackers and closing with the big guns -- which Crosby, Stills & Nash more or less did at the Township on Wednesday night.

The trio kicked the show off with "Carry On", and the signature tight (detractors say "painful") harmonies were spot on in a pretty decent sound mix:

They then moved fairly quickly to "Marakesh Express"

and "Just A Song Before I Go"

Inasmuch as there was a front man for the group, David Crosby took the role. He alluded briefly to his famously self destructive ways back in the day, and did most of the commentary and introductions. He seemed a bit froggy when speaking, but nailed all of his leads, sometimes with vocals of surprising power. Stephen Stills was vocally in worse shape. I don't know if it was due to being 69 years old, or if he just blew out his voice over the course of the tour, but it was very noticable on his solo leads -- not enough to spoil the enjoyment, but definitely there. Somehow his harmonies were still pure though. Graham Nash was the most retiring presence on stage, and didn't seem to have a lot to say.

During the "firecracker" portion of the show, CSN did several new tunes, both as a group and as three solo artists. I thought the best of these was a lament for the Tibetian monks who have set themselves on fire protesting Chinese rule of that mountain land.

The way they approached the solo and new material was a bit odd as often the two who were not involved with a song would leave the stage. It was certainly a reminder that CSN is as much three people showing up together as it is an organic group. While it gave each man a time to shine, I would have preferred the solo songs to be presented in group arrangements as was done very effectively with Still's famous ode to carnal convenience:

And with the exploration of Stills's previous membership in Buffalo Springfield:

The show closed with a meditation on education:

Big guns conspicuously silent: "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes", "Ohio", "Woodstock" and Neil Young.

Certainly a great show.

(Would have posted this last night, but was having a terrible time getting the video uploaded. I will swap out the low-res for high when I finally get it transferred).

I first wrote about Empire Grill in a closing for College Corner. Even at the point I took the first picture above for that post, I had to wonder what was going on, as the signage for the new place made Open Late a big selling point, and .. it was never open late.

'

I had actually taken some pictures of this place last September, when I first got a report that it was closed. That proved to be short lived, and by the time I got over there, it was open again as seen in the first three pictures.

This month it re-closed, this time apparently for good as there is a real-estate sign in the window, and the menus have been taken down (although the nice neon sign is still there..)

(Hat tip to commenter Justin)

UPDATE 17 January 2014 -- Now it's Olive Grill:

I thought for a few minutes about this place the first time I saw it, and decided that I hoped it meant meatball sandwiches, and not actual meatballs. Either way, it seemed like somewhat of an off-the-wall concept and I was saddened but not surprised to see it done up with butcher paper over the windows recently.

(Hat tip to commenter Justin)

Enterprise is not one of the car rental firms I've ever used, though their promise to deliver the car to you rather than have you come for the car is appealing. In the event, the one time I needed such a service (stuck in Beaufort with a busted alternator) the local branch was closed on Sunday and I just ended up staying until my car was fixed. Of course I never get a rental car that's a model I would drive by choice, so it was probably just as well.

The phonebook and google say that there are still several other Enterprise locations in town.

(Hat tip to commenter Matt)

UPDATE 19 October 2012 -- As commenter Matt notes in the comments this location has moved to 1307 Assembly Street a few blocks away.

UPDATE 14 November 2012 -- Here is the new Assembly Street location:

UPDATE 5 May 2018 -- At some point the 1436 Taylor Street building was razed:

I noticed a For Rent sign on this nice little building at Taylor & Henderson Streets a couple of weeks ago as I was driving downtown.

To me the place looks like a former house, but more like a 1950s house than the older homes you often see converted to offices downtown. If so, they were building residences in the area later than I would have expected.

At any rate, clients of the law firm shouldn't worry, they have moved just a bit up the block to this building at 1614 Taylor:

UPDATE 3 October 2012: Update the move date from "2012" to "circa 2007" based on the comments.

DRAKES RESTAURANT
Columbia, S. C.

Best food on Highway One, north of Columbia. A spe-
cialty Restaurant serving good clean food. So duck in at
Drakes and enjoy a delicious meal.

DRAKE'S RESTAURANT
Columbia, S. C.
Best food on Highway one, north of Columbia. A specialty
Restaurant serving good clean food. So duck in at Drake's
and enjoy a delicious meal.

"Good Clean Food" -- I'm not sure I've ever seen that exact phrase used as a selling point before..

Over the years I've been running Columbia Closings I've gotten a number of requests for Drake's Restaurant on Taylor Street. I've never done much about it because we never ate there, and I really didn't remember the place, and because the building was gone.

Recently though, I was searching an online postcard site, and found two good postcards of Drake's. As fate would have it, commenter Dennis emailed me the same day with a copy of one of the same postcard images, saying:

This is Drake's Restaurant that stood on the southeast corner of Two
Notch/Millwood and Forest Drive. It's been long demolished and is now
a Church's Chicken. This view is from the south on Millwood. My family
ate there a lot in the early 1960s. It was a nice, quiet, "white
tablecloth" place that I truly miss. The Drakes ran a florist business
in the same building, no doubt doing a lot of business with Providence
Hospital patients across the street. And Yes, there is a connection to
Drake's Duck-In on Main Street, or at least there was originally.

I'm not sure what years these cards are from. I'm confident however, that the first card is earlier, as you can see that the roof air-conditioning units are the old wooden-slat type, while in the next card they are more modern.

I'm not sure when Drake's was started either. It *is* listed in the 1954 Southern Bell phonebook, the first one available at the RCPL. That, and subsequent phonebooks up to 1960 give the address as simply "Taylor Street". The December 1961 book is the first one to give the street number of "2436 Taylor Street". As far as I can tell, the place never bought a full yellow-pages ad. However, also starting in the December 1961 book, it did start buying a small box ad (pictured above) touting its "Go Service" wherein you could phone in your order and pick it up to go. This continued (with the same design and text) through the final listing for Drake's, which was in the January 1977 phonebook.

As Dennis mentions, the Drake's address is now a Church's Chicken fast food outlet, which is a completely new building.

One thing about the whole situation which blows my mind is that Drake's had (and Church's has) a Taylor Street address. If there was anything I thought I knew, it was that Taylor Street was West of Millwood and Forest Drive was East of Millwood. Full stop end of story. There's probably some sort of street re-routing story there...

(Hat tip to commenter Dennis, and a few others over the years)