Don’t want fast food at the old Harper’s in Five Points? That’s what it was built for

In the early 1980s, a new concept in fast food came to Columbia. It was a lighter version of the popular McDonald’s, Burger King and Wendy’s fare.

It featured higher quality beef in its hamburgers, lower calorie condiments and something new for a fast food restaurant – a salad bar. The franchise was called D’Lites, and one of the first franchises was in Five Points.

Restaurateur John Scarborough tore down seven stores fronts and a couple houses at the corner of Santee Avenue and Harden Street and built a brand new building. The new enterprise included a drive-thru lane circling the building.

“We operated it until 1990,” said Scarborough, who still owns the building that until earlier this year housed Harper’s. “We were the 13th built out of 110. But the national franchise went out of business and we were the last one to close.”

Today, there is a debate on whether fast food restaurants with drive-thru windows are appropriate in “lower” Five Points.

That could be decided Tuesday at 10 a.m. when the Columbia Board of Zoning Appeals rules on whether to give a special exception for a drive-thru at a Zaxby’s restaurant planned for the Harper’s location. Under city code, all drive-thru’s must receive a special exception because of their potential affect on traffic flows.

The opponents, citing the 12-year-old Five Points Masterplan and Design Overlay and the Five Points Merchants Association, say they aren’t appropriate.

“A fast-food drive-thru, and the traffic it creates, would have a major impact on the context and feel of this historic neighborhood village,” Five Points Association executive director Amy Beth Franks said in a news release last week.

But Scarborough said the new drive-thru lanes would mirror exactly the drive-thru lanes from 1984-1990, which have ingress and egress from Santee and Harden, with a long looping lane to absorb the cars.

“The drive-thru is almost exactly where the original was,” he said. “They just moved it back to save the mural” of Five Points painted by artist Blue Sky on the side of the building when it was built.

Franks noted in a text over the weekend that “D’Lites was open almost 30 years ago, and 12 year ago, the City of Columbia endorsed a community vision for future development called ‘Future Five.’”

She declined further comment on Monday.

Others say that changing times in the funky urban village near the University of South Carolina requires a re-thinking of that decade-old master plan.

Since it was written, three landmark restaurants – Harper’s Garibaldi’s and El Burrito have closed. There has been a sharp rise in college bars that most often don’t open until 10 p.m. and are said to incubate late night problems. And as a result there is a perception by some that Five Points isn’t safe after dark.

“Garibaldi’s and Harper’s didn’t leave Five Points because they were making too much money,” said state Rep. Kirkman Finlay, who owns Pawley’s Back Porch in Five Points and is a member of the association. “It’s nice that (the association) is discouraging (fast food), but if no one goes in there are they just going to let it stay dark?”

Finlay said that he is a member of the organization, but wasn’t consulted about the decision to oppose the Zaxby’s. He leases space near Richland Mall for Zaxby’s franchisees Jim and Britt Poston of Florence, who want to occupy the Harper’s building.

The Postons operate 19 Zaxby’s, all in South Carolina, including the popular store on Knox Abbott Drive in Cayce. They also have stores in Myrtle Beach, Florence, Sumter, Orangeburg and Columbia.

“They are good operators,” Finlay said. “Regardless of what you think about fast food, they will be great business owners for Five Points.”

Britt Poston said they originally planned to tear down the Harper’s building with its wide, brick front porch, to build a standardized fast-food restaurant, but changed their minds.

“After careful examination, we thought it had a lot of character and would make a good Zaxby’s,” Britt Poston said.

Scarborough added that he marketed the building to about a half dozen “nicer, sit-down” restaurants – including one recommended by the Five Points Association – but had no takers. It came down to Zaxby’s or another college bar.

Kit Smith, president of the Coalition of Five Points Neighborhoods, said that given the building’s history and design, opponents might have a hard sell with the zoning board.

“Nobody wants fast food,” she said. “But what do we say to oppose it? That it’s not to our tastes?”

This story was originally published December 11, 2017 at 4:49 PM with the headline "Don’t want fast food at the old Harper’s in Five Points? That’s what it was built for."