I enjoyed this article in the NY Times about the sadness that you feel when your favorite restaurant closes.

Every restaurant is a portal — a way to remember who you were and how things felt when you were, say, 19, or 27, or 35, but also to remember the particulars of a city, a neighborhood, a block.

I started to think about the restaurants that I’ve loved that are no longer open. I started with a longer list¹, but here are three that I really miss:

The West Side Bowery
Aiken, South Carolina
Closed in 2013 after a 32-year run

There weren’t many nice restaurants in Aiken when I lived there. The Bowery wasn’t exactly upscale, but the food was great. We didn’t go often when I was in high school, but I did go there for dinner before my junior and senior prom. My connection to the...

Even though it rained earlier, we got out to Gather Columbia late this afternoon. Lots of great food options. Fun atmosphere. Another cool addition to Columbia.

The renovated Finlay Park in Columbia is gorgeous. They did such a great job with the update and it’s now such a vibrant space for the community. Love it.

Finally made it to City Limits Barbeque. Even with all the hype, it exceeded my expectations. Outstanding.

Impressed with the new Methodical Coffee in The Bull Street District in Columbia. Really awesome to see this area finally coming together.

Scout Motors partnered with local coffee shops to buy coffee for Columbia today. Pretty cool event, and we are happy to have Scout in our community. Thanks for the free drink today! (And the stickers.)

Fireflies baseball. A beautiful night to catch a minor league game.

Back in 2016, I had a blog about retail developments in the Columbia, South Carolina area. And one of the most popular topics was why there wasn’t an Apple Store in Columbia.

Yesterday I was at Columbiana Mall and realized that the large Forever 21 is closing.¹ I’m always interested in Apple Store-sized vacancies in Columbia and I thought back to an analysis that I did almost 10 years ago² and wanted to see if anything has changed. Is it odd that Columbia doesn’t have an Apple Store?

Comparing MSAs

I needed to look at some population data and decided to start by looking at Metropolitan Statistic Area (MSA). An MSA is a way of classifying an urban core and its surrounding population. It’s better than using city population because it includes suburbs and outlying areas that are closely connected to the urban core.

For...

A little snow in Columbia, South Carolina is a big deal.