Want to own a piece of Five Points history? Yesterdays memorabilia to go on auction
For more than 40 years, Yesterdays Restaurant & Tavern has been a fixture in Columbia’s Five Points. But in early April, the landmark restaurant closed its doors forever.
Through the decades, the restaurant had amassed a treasure trove of memorabilia, from the iconic cowboy in a bathtub (two of them, actually: one above the front door and one inside), to the two ornate bars, to the church pew seating, decoupaged tabletops, signs of all varieties and large fish tanks.
In July, those items will be up for auction, allowing the throngs of loyal customers through the years to own a little bit of Five Points history.
“It’s an opportunity for people to buy a memory,” said Jeremy Wooten, of the Camden-based but internationally known auction house Wooten and Wooten Auctions.
The company specializes in “fine arts, antiques and grand estates,” according to its website.
Located at the intersection of Harden, Devine and Santee streets, Yesterdays’ triangular building is one of the most recognizable in the city. The restaurant was operated from 1977 to this year by co-owners Darrell Barnes and brothers Duncan and Scottie McRae.
Barnes is from Lancaster, S.C., and the MacRae brothers are from Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Barnes and Duncan MacRae met while working for the Hilton Hotel in Myrtle Beach and later went on to work in food management for the hotel chain in Texas.
The idea for the cowboy in the bathtub came from the Lone Star State.
“The man in the tub came to be because, in Dallas, they had a place that had a witch in a bathtub out on top (of the business),” Barnes told The State newspaper in 2018. “So we decided, since we’re moving here from Dallas and the Dallas Cowboys and everything, that we wanted to project a relaxed atmosphere. What’s more relaxing than a guy in a bathtub with his boots on and a beer and a brush in his hands?”
Sharpe’s Formal Wear supplied the first mannequin. The church pews in the booths along the walls came from actual churches in South Carolina and Georgia. And the MacRae brothers’ father became an expert at decoupaging the tabletops with artwork and magazine clippings.
Over the years, the restaurant also gathered its share of national recognition and celebrity guests:
▪ ESPN College GameDay highlighted the restaurant on a “Talk of the Town” segment.
▪ Actor James Caan dined at the restaurant while filming “The Program” in 1993.
▪ Author Pat Conroy’s brothers worked at the restaurant, and Conroy himself had a designated corner booth.
▪ Darius Rucker and other members of Hootie and the Blowfish hung out at Yesterdays.
▪ And University of South Carolina football star and now NFL All-Pro Jadeveon Clowney ate meals there twice a week.
But Yesterdays’ biggest claim to fame was as the birthplace of Five Points annual St. Patrick’s Day festival, which draws tens of thousands of people each year. It started in the restaurant’s parking lot, with two kegs of beer, Barnes said.
This month, the restaurant was gutted and the memorabilia turned over to the auction house.
New owner Dominic Como, a New Jersey native who co-founded Village Idiot Pizza and now owns the Aqua Seal Roofing Company in Cayce, said he plans to preserve and renovate the building, but he doesn’t know yet what it will become..
He has applied for historic tax credits to help with the expense of renovations, which will determine the the building’s future use.
“We’ve just started that process,” he said.
Wooten said only “50 to 100” collectible items will be auctioned, not things like plates or cookware. The wooden sculpture of the cowboy in the bathtub that was inside the restaurant is definitely up for auction, “but we’re still trying to figure out” what to do with the one outside.
“The items that we are handling are very specific, things that are very personal,” he said.
The times for the online and telephone auction will be announced later this week. But the July 25 date “will give people time to build up their war chest,” Wooten said. “This is going to be special.”