Alicia Holbrook was just trying to pass the time until her daughter went back to sleep with a TV show about alpaca farming. Five years later, her late-night idea has grown into Carolina Pride Pastures, a thriving alpaca farm boasting 20 alpacas and an educational field trip program.
Read more →A vibrantly colored sign at The Local Buzz in Rosewood welcomes “all sizes, all colors, all ages, all cultures, all sexes, all beliefs, all religions, all types, all people – safe here.” Stephanie Bridgers painted the sign and runs her coffee shop by this creed.
Read more →Columbia developer Richard Burts has built a reputation taking on projects, such as 701 Whaley and the Palmetto Compress Warehouse, that others said were impossible. Those successes have proved to Burts the value of historic preservation and prompted others to say he really gets it. He talks with us about saving historic Columbia.
Read more →Fifteen years ago, Ed Albritton was at a crossroads. He took the leap from a stressful mental health career to opening Ed’s Editions rare and used books in West Columbia. His son thought he was crazy, but Albritton now says it’s the best decision he could have made.
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Jaco’s Corner, the 104-year-old bar in the shadow of Williams-Brice Stadium, is likely to pour its last beer this summer. The Jaco family, which has owned the Olympia neighborhood bar at Rosewood Drive and Bluff Road for three generations, is reluctantly being pushed toward the sale by financial and generational realities.
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That famous movie line “greed is good” isn’t too far off the mark for USC professor Colin Jones. He’s trying to build a world-class finance program to go with the Darla Moore Business School’stop-ranked international program. The goal is to make USC students competitive for top-dollar jobs from Wall Street to Main Street.
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How do you take something you do every day and make money from it? For Toni Tarbutton, that meant turning her juicing lifestyle into a business after buying mobile juice bar Gin’s Juice. Her new business venture also lets Tarbutton be able to interact more with the community. By Charnita Mack Nov. 23, 2015...
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Vino Garage owner Doug Aylard took a chance when opening his first business in Columbia’s North Main district. Three years later, he’s thumbing his nose at the banks that snubbed him and hopes his success will attract more business to the area just beyond downtown.
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The almost $650,000 that Columbia has spent to update the facades of over 24 businesses in the North Main area during the past three years has meant more business for owners like Mark Sills of Angelo’s Zesto and a more livable neighborhood.
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After years of watching downtown Columbia’s revival, West Columbia is beginning to see shops move to its side of the Congaree River. The success of restaurants inside the “West Vista” around State and Meeting streets has been vital in attracting those new businesses.
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