After 29 years, white-linen tablecloth restaurant closes in Five Points

Garibaldi’s, a Five Points institution where romantic dinners glowed with intimacy and class, has closed, with the restaurateur saying he’s looking to buy a historic property downtown for a new location.

Jeff Balish, owner/operator of the Greene Street landmark, said Wednesday he no longer wanted to rent property for the restaurant open for dinner only. He hopes to establish a new place in the next two years while concentrating on his second Columbia restaurant, Cola’s. It now offers some of Garibaldi’s signature dishes.

Patron Mike Dawson, who lives in nearby Shandon, said Tuesday’s closing leaves a gap in Five Points. “That was the white tablecloth place, with flounder and champagne,” he said. “It was a special occasion, celebration place.”

For 29 years, the family owned restaurant catered to USC faculty and legislators, young couples and the old guard. Oftentimes, the blue-lit bar was a gathering place for a who’s who of Columbia life as people waited for their reservations and drank in the view of the Five Points fountain out front.

The property owner, the Wolfe & Taylor Co., will seek a similar tenant for the building just off Harden Street, in the heart of Five Points, said agent Dana Wolfe. “We’d love to have another restaurant there, something like Garibaldi’s,” he said. “We’re not looking for a bar or anything.”

Wolfe expects to get a lot of calls from potential tenants as news spreads about the closing, he said.

Even Balish admitted he had “the best location in Five Points.” But his family owned company, Charleston-based Garibaldi’s Management Corp., has moved away from leased locations.

Three decades ago, Garibaldi’s led the way in bringing top-notch dining to Five Points, said Amy Beth Franks, director of the Five Points Association.

“Garibaldi’s did add a fantastic element, which was that elevated dining experience,” she said. And there are still plenty of great restaurants in Five Points — just not Garibaldi’s, which closed unexpectedly.

The tables of the empty restaurant were still covered with cloths and silverware, bud vases and water goblets. Balish said he would have liked to give more notice, but the time was right to close and move staff to his other restaurant. Anyone with unredeemed gift certificates can use them at Cola’s, he said.

His parents, the late William and Elizabeth Balish, opened Garibaldi’s as part of a small family chain that began in Charleston in 1978, then moved to Savannah and lastly Columbia in 1986. The restaurant brought fresh seafood to town, along with an art deco decor that intrigued patrons.

Garibaldi’s served dinner seven days a week and offered a special place to go on Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve, too.

Gabriele Evans, the office manager for years, before moving to Cola’s, rattled off stories of couples getting engaged: a ring placed on top of the mousse cake or slipped into a bouquet of roses delivered by a server.

One mother, eager to know if a young woman she adored was to become her daughter-in-law, kept Evans on the line throughout the proposal. “She said, ‘Please let me know if she says yes.’ I was on the phone with her and the manager came down the hallway and said, ‘She accepted!’ And there were congratulations.”

Richard Burts, a restaurteur-turned-developer, said it hurts to lose a long-lived, family-owned business in Five Points. “I’m saddened,” he said. “I can’t really describe it any other way.”

But he said he expects Balish to make “a lateral move.”

“Now whether or not that will be with the name Garibaldi’s or not, I couldn’t say,” Burts said. “My guess is, as a former restaurteur, he’ll walk into a place and he’ll have to ‘feel’ what the place is telling him for a name. Sometimes a building can dictate a menu and style and flow.”

On another front, Balish confirmed that he recently purchased 1002 Gervais St., home to the Capital Club, which bills itself as the oldest gay club in town. Balish said he’s not looking to make a change there anytime soon. “It will be a concept at a later date,” he said, adding the building is “too small for a Garibaldi’s.”

This story was originally published January 28, 2015 at 5:21 PM with the headline "After 29 years, white-linen tablecloth restaurant closes in Five Points."