A new life for Compton’s? West Columbia restaurant works to open soon
.jpg "A new ownership group wants to open Compton’s, a twist on the decades-old restaurant named Compton’s Kitchen that closed early last year, in West Columbia’s Triangle.")
More than a year after Compton’s Kitchen, a Southern food staple that welcomed regulars in West Columbia’s Triangle City for nearly half a century, closed its doors, new ownership wants to bring back a similar concept under a similar name.
With a soft opening tentatively set for Labor Day weekend, DAJ Holdings, a Columbia-based investment group wants to bring back the nostalgia of Compton’s Kitchen, with its meat and three plates and breakfast staples, under a similar name — just Compton’s.
“A lot of [the investors] were actually patrons of the restaurant … they wanted to see it come back before, they were a little disheartened that it closed,” Kira Person, the project manager for Compton’s, told The State.
The restaurant, at 1118 B. Ave. in West Columbia, had been open since 1977 when it abruptly closed in February of last year. Former owner Asia Dove, who’d purchased the business from longtime owner Martha Cooke in 2022, had initially teased a reopening of the restaurant just a month after the closure was initially reported.
But those plans haven’t yet come to fruition. Dove told The State she’s looked at a few possible options, but hasn’t nailed down an official home for the restaurant yet.
With new ownership opening a similarly named restaurant in the same place as the old one, Dove said she took issue with the fact that the investment group, which is registered to Dino James, is using the Compton’s name despite not buying the intellectual property rights to the business.
“The property is not the business. I own the right to the business, I own the right to the name of the business,” Dove told The State. “Dino has never, ever had any right, he’s never made a purchase from me directly to utilize the name of the business or the recipe or the menus.”
On the new sign that adorns the building Compton’s Kitchen once sat in, a tag line reads, “Serving since 1977,” which Dove also took issue with. She said she intends to have a lawyer contact the restaurant’s new owners.
Person told The State that the new owners have run the intention to use the Compton’s name by their attorneys and believe they’re legally allowed to use the name sans the word “kitchen.”
The investment group bought the property in a foreclosure sale in February, according to county property records. They’ve worked to completely remodel the building, Person said, adding in new kitchen equipment and seating.
As for the menu, the new owners hope to bring back some of the old staples. Person teased a return of some of the restaurant’s classics like liver pudding and onion sausage. But ultimately, the goal is to figure out what new customers are interested in and adjust the menu from there, she said.
“They’re hoping that it brings back some of the nostalgia of what Compton’s was back in the day,” Person said.
Once it’s open, the new restaurant is set to be open seven days a week, Person said.
When Compton’s Kitchen closed in February of last year, it joined a handful of other prominent, decades-old restaurants to shutter around the Midlands. In December 2023, just months before, the area saw the closure of both Jin Jin Chinese restaurant, which had been located on Sunset Boulevard in West Columbia for 29 years, and Al’s Upstairs, a West Columbia Italian restaurant for more than four decades.
This story was originally published August 9, 2025 at 5:00 AM.
