What are the most anticipated business openings in the Columbia area in 2020?
Whether you’re wanting to shop, eat, drink, dance or play games — or, more likely, do it all — you’ll have even more opportunities in the capital city in the coming year.
Mark your calendars for these openings, and figure out how to work these new ventures into your New Year’s resolutions. Here are some Columbia-area business openings we’re already looking forward to in 2020, or maybe sooner, if we’re lucky.
Holiday Inn Express: One Holiday Inn hotel just opened downtown on Washington Street, and a five-story cousin hotel is being built less than half a mile away in the Vista, beside the Columbia Police Department headquarters at Washington and Lincoln streets. It will be the sixteenth hotel to open in the downtown and university area. The new 105-room Holiday Inn Express is projected to open in May or June of 2020.
The Local Buzz: Rosewood’s resident cafe is moving a little north to Five Points. Owner Stephanie Griggs Bridgers plans to reopen a smaller version of the cafe on Harden Street in January.
REI Co-op: The popular outdoor retail chain announced in early 2019 it would open a 20,000-square-foot store at the BullStreet development in downtown Columbia. Construction is well underway at the site along Bull Street and Colonial Drive. The store is projected to open in the spring of 2020.
Savage Craft Ale Works: West Columbia’s first brewery is opening in an old jailhouse on Center Street. It will add to the area’s increasingly vibrant river district, with an expected opening in May 2020.
Transmission Arcade: Expected to be Columbia’s only locally owned bar-arcade combo, Transmission is upfitting a space in the 1700 block of Main Street that last belonged to the Local Yocal bodega. The transformation is in process, skee-ball lanes are in place, and Transmission could open in early 2020.
WECO Bottle & Biergarten: Phillip Blair, co-owner of The Whig in downtown Columbia, is expanding his beer talents westward to Meeting Street in West Columbia. The WECO imbibing and retail space is expected to open this winter — possibly before the new year.
The Woody: The Vista dance hall closed in June, but it’s making a comeback on Main Street, below the Hendrix restaurant in the 1600 block. In a Facebook post on Dec. 11, the club indicated it would open in 2020, without setting a definitive date yet.
BEHIND THE STORY
MOREWhy we report on business openings and closings
The restaurants, stores and other businesses that come and go in our communities have a direct effect on our everyday lives. Where you’ll take your family for dinner tonight or why your neighbor closed down the family shop — these are conversations you have all the time with one another, and The State newspaper strives to cover the things you talk about and care about.
Reporters at The State regularly drive and walk through local neighborhoods and retail centers to notice openings and closings, check public documents for hints about business moves and — most importantly — talk to our friends and neighbors about what they see, hear and wonder about in the community. Feel free to reach out to our reporters anytime to tell us what you know or ask us what you want to know about local businesses.
