‘It just feels so lonely.’ Coronavirus leaves 5 Points and Columbia deflated, unsure

A handful of things have defined Five Points for decades. Among them:

Nightlife. The annual St. Patrick’s Day festival. And Yesterdays restaurant and bar.

They’re all gone.

In the span of a month or less, the sweeping coronavirus pandemic sucked away the lifeblood of the urban village — sidewalk dining, work meetings at coffee shops, live music, boutique shopping, watching sports at a bar, carefree youths reveling amid the glow of midnight bar lights.

Columbia’s signature downtown district now feels somewhere between dull and desolate, depending on the time of day, as do other once-vibrant parts of the city and of major urban areas across South Carolina, the United States and the globe. Five Points is not unique in its current struggle, but it’s a distinct example of the harsh toll the coronavirus pandemic has taken far beyond public health.

First came the devastating but inevitable cancellation of St. Pat’s in Five Points, the district’s most anticipated event each year, always drawing tens of thousands of attendees and major musical headliners, which this year included Band of Horses. It’s also the major revenue driver for the district’s merchants’ association, which funds beautification projects, coordinating and marketing staff for the district and other initiatives.

“It was just a big blow that kind of took all our breath away,” said Kelsey Hennighan, director of the Five Points Association, which supports the district and its merchants. “We had to take a train moving full-speed ahead and put it in reverse. It had to completely come to a stop.”

The festival’s cancellation on March 11 proved to be a tipping point across the city and the state, as cancellations and closures came in quick succession over the following days.

“In retrospect, all the stress and energy around it looks kind of ridiculous because, obviously, we weren’t going to have that concert,” said Steve Cook, owner of Saluda’s restaurant and president of the merchant’s association. “The decision, in a vacuum, cost so many people so much money. Obviously, that’s a drop in the bucket compared to what’s happened since then.”

Within a week came the statewide order that ended dine-in eating and drinking for the foreseeable future.

That spelled closure for the district’s myriad bars, which rely on alcohol rather than food sales as the bulk of their business. And it severely sliced the business of dozens of casual and finer restaurants that are a defining feature of the district. Add in, of course, the fact that local college students wouldn’t be returning to campus for at least weeks — then, it turned out, months — and Five Points’ customer base was vastly diminished.

Then came a third hard blow. Yesterdays, perhaps the cornerstone of the district, served its last meals for now, maybe forever.

“As a business owner, usually you can gather the facts and make a decision,” said Darrell Barnes, who co-owns the iconic restaurant with brothers Duncan and Scottie MacRae. St. Pat’s in Five Points was born in their own parking lot.

“This is the first time in 43 years I’ve been in a position you can’t gather the facts, because nobody knows. We’re waiting on the virus to decide,” he said.

‘It just feels so lonely’

Until now, a Five Points without Yesterdays was nearly unthinkable.

“My wife of 30 years this year, I took her (to Yesterdays) on our first date, and then three years later, I asked her to marry me sitting in the same booth,” remembers Don McCallister, who owns Loose Lucy’s shop about a block from Yesterdays. “That’s my one personal connection to the place. Can you imagine how many people have similar stories after 40 years? We can’t lose it. ...

“You get used to things, and by goodness, it hurts when you see them go away. We can’t let them go away.”

After more than 40 years feeding nearly everyone and their mother in Columbia, Yesterdays made it on takeout alone for two or three weeks. Though takeout business was steady — in fact, busier than expected — it wasn’t sustainable, Barnes said. Many other restaurants have shared or soon might share the same fate; Home Team BBQ, across the street from Yesterdays, indefinitely closed its restaurants in Columbia, Charleston and Colorado, leaving some 400 employees out of work.

A brief few weeks have suddenly, completely redefined Five Points, which already was in the midst of somewhat redefining its identity, as business turnover and debates about the district’s character have broiled for months.

Now, nearly every store is closed to customers; signs in their windows direct the sparse passersby to visit them online. Drip coffee shop is doing some grab-and-go sidewalk sales. A handful of people pop in and out of Gourmet Shop and Groucho’s and Publico and a few others for lunchtime takeout.

At the northern end of the district, the Food Lion parking lot stays busy, and a drive-thru line stays wrapped around the Chick-fil-A. Construction plows forward on an upcoming development in the 900 block, formerly home to Hip Wa Zee and El Burrito.

There are still some cars on the street in the middle of the day, but the vibe is all off.

To Cook, who’s worked in Five Points since high school and has owned one of its signature restaurants for more than a decade, this time is like “a holiday you didn’t ask for, didn’t look for, and you just want it to be over.”

Cook’s restaurant, Saluda’s, has pivoted to takeout service the past few weeks — something it never did before. That’s meant adjusting the restaurant’s menu and the way the work flows. But most importantly, it’s meant staying in business rather than shutting down and having to start from the ground up some day in the ambiguous future, Cook said. He’s hoping to receive a boost from government assistance, something he’s never wanted or needed before, so that he can keep paying employees and rehire some others.

“It’s surreal,” said Richard Burts, a longtime business and property owner in Five Points, as well as a friend and business landlord to Cook. “You know, that word is getting overused, but it’s just — I can’t even describe it. It just feels so lonely. I’m so used to it being vibrant and people out on the sidewalks and saying ‘hello’ to your neighbors and it taking you 30 minutes to walk up the sidewalk because people are stopping to talk to you.”

A comeback, but when?

What else could ever have quieted the capital city’s busiest streets? The pandemic has proved to be “a perfect weapon to kill small businesses,” Cook said.

Even at this point, though, it isn’t too hard for most to imagine a comeback for Five Points and for the city. But it’s an awfully cloudy vision.

Will it happen in a matter of weeks or months? Will university students return to town in August — and will they have to leave again? Will there be a Gamecocks football season? Will every businesses reopen? Will Yesterdays?

Barnes doesn’t know the answer to any of these questions. The future of everything, from the shape of the city to Five Points down to his very own business, is lost in uncertainty for now.

“I’m sitting here on the second floor of our building. If you look out, everything’s empty,” Barnes said one afternoon this week. “It looks like Sunday morning at 9 o’clock as far as traffic and nobody being around.

“When I look out, you just wonder what businesses are coming back.”

McCallister’s not too worried about himself, his wife and business partner, Jenn, and their “mom-and-pop hippie shop,” Loose Lucy’s, a fixture in Five Points for nearly 30 years.

“I’m certain that, all other things being equal, Loose Lucy’s will be here in the fall. I’m not sure about others,” he said. “Not everyone’s as resilient, and my heart goes out to my fellow business owners.”

For the most part, he added, they’re all business owners who’ve never wanted any handouts and now are depending on government assistance so they can hope to be here when this is all over.

McCallister hopes that will be sooner rather than later.

“I miss our customers. I don’t mean I miss their money,” he said. “I miss their faces. I miss their smiles. I miss giving them a smile back. When will I get to do that again? I want it to be soon.”

Cook is optimistic, too. He thinks Five Points will bounce back relatively quickly, whenever the time comes.

“I think Columbia, and Five Points as a microcosm of that, people are just going to want to go back and do the things they did before,” he said. ”And Five Points is sitting here waiting for them.”

This story was originally published April 16, 2020 at 12:13 PM.