The brick building at the corner of Rosewood Drive and Howard Street never had a sign. That was the point. For more than 40 years, Rockaway Athletic Club ran on word of mouth alone, black shutters over the windows, no marquee, no logo out front, just a line of regulars who knew exactly where they were going. When it closed in January 2024, the building went dark and stayed that way. Not for a few months while a landlord shopped for a tenant. For over two years.
That's a long time for one of the most recognizable corners in the neighborhood to sit vacant, especially one wedged between Rosewood and Shandon, on a strip where empty storefronts are rare. The obvious read is that nobody wanted it, or that the rent didn't pencil out, or that the building needed more work than anyone expected. The ownership group later said it hoped to put another restaurant in the space, but that hope alone doesn't explain why it remained vacant.
What Closed, and Why It Took This Long to Reopen
Rockaway opened in 1982, the work of brothers Paul and Forrest Whitlark, and became the kind of place people who'd moved away made a point of visiting when they came back to town. The pimento cheeseburger got national attention when Food & Wine named it the best burger in South Carolina in 2021. None of that saved it from the same pressures that hit a run of long-running Midlands restaurants around the same time. Al's Upstairs closed after 44 years. Yamato closed after 49. River Rat Brewery shut down after a decade. Rockaway's closing in January 2024 wasn't an isolated event so much as one entry in a wave.
Columbia's Cason Development Group and Baker Commercial Properties bought the building the same month it closed. At the time, Cason Development Group's president, Frank Cason, said he hoped a future tenant would serve the community, specifically Rosewood and Shandon. That was a stated priority, but it doesn't establish why the building remained vacant.
Patrick DiMarco, who handles investor relations for Cason Development Group, later confirmed to a Columbia television station that it mattered to the ownership group that whoever took the space was locally owned. He also said plainly that a number of people had looked at the building over those two years. Those details establish that there was interest in the building and that local ownership mattered to the ownership group, but not why the vacancy lasted so long.
What Moved In
The tenant that eventually moved in was Frederick Richardson, owner of Bang Back Pinball Lounge in Five Points. He signed the lease in January 2026, and the new spot, Bang Back Bar & Grill, held its dedication on June 12, 2026, opening as the business's second Columbia location on the sixth anniversary of the original.
Richardson has said the building found him more than the other way around. He'd known about it for a while but never seriously looked at it because he didn't think he was staying in Columbia. Once he decided to stay, the math changed. In his words, it was the right size, the right footprint, and the right neighborhood.
"This is the size. This is the footprint. This is the neighborhood that we want to be in."
The new location keeps the pinball identity that built the Five Points spot, but the menu leans harder into sit-down meals than the original, which built its reputation on handhelds and small plates. Richardson has described the shift as intentional, aimed at making the Rosewood location feel more like a neighborhood restaurant than a bar that happens to serve food. Sour & Salt Bakery, a Rosewood neighbor, will supply the bread for the kitchen, a small detail that ties the new tenant into the existing business fabric rather than dropping in beside it.
Here's how the two eras of the same address compare, at least on paper:
| Rockaway Athletic Club (1982-2024) | Bang Back Bar & Grill (2026-) | |
|---|---|---|
| Signage | None, ever | Custom stained glass, pinball-themed |
| Menu focus | Burgers, bar food | Sit-down meals, expanded entrees |
| Ownership | Whitlark family, single location | Second location of a Five Points original |
| Games | Pool tables | Pinball, Skee-Ball, Super Chexx Bubble Hockey, Big Buck Hunter |
| Bar program | The Palmetto Liquor Library | Craft cocktails from Columbia bar-scene veterans |
Richardson has been candid about the cost of getting here. He's said that if anyone came to him right now wanting to open a restaurant, he'd steer them away, that the business is harder than it used to be. The Rosewood build-out was briefly paused when he lost a longtime liquor liability policy after his previous insurer left South Carolina, and the team was ready to open on beer and wine alone if it came to that. A new policy came through in time. His reasoning for pushing forward anyway echoed Cason's stated hope for a community-serving restaurant.
"It's about legacy, it's about building something for the community."
Why the Corridor Moves This Slowly
None of this is unusual for the strip Rockaway sits on. Devine Street, a few blocks north, is the commercial spine that most Shandon residents actually walk to, and more than 95% of its storefronts are locally owned rather than chains. Craft & Draft, the brewery-and-bottle-shop hybrid a few doors down, was started in 2013 by two USC students, Kellan Monroe and Andrew Jackson, who used to talk about opening a brewery long before they had one. Cantina 76 has been serving tacos and margaritas since 2009, founded by four Columbia natives who went to college together. Za's on Devine and the newer Devine Street location of Backstreets Grill fill in around them.
The long vacancy at Rockaway is one part of a broader story about how change unfolds along this corridor.
That same corridor is also where the neighborhood's biggest annual gathering already starts and ends. The Turkey Trot, a Black Friday 5K that's been a Shandon tradition since 1981, begins and finishes near Craft & Draft, with awards handed out there afterward. A new restaurant opening a few blocks over doesn't automatically insert itself into that rhythm, but it's arriving in a part of town where a race that's been running since before most of its runners were born still ends at the same bar every year. New businesses here get absorbed into an existing calendar, not the other way around.
What This Looks Like Heading Into Fall
For residents on the Shandon side of Rosewood Drive, the practical change is that a building that's been dark since early 2024 is lit up again, with a menu, a bar, and enough arcade games to make it a plausible answer to "where should we go tonight" that doesn't involve driving out of the neighborhood. The Turkey Trot is still months out, still ending at Craft & Draft the way it always has. Emily Douglas Park's dog park is still the same loop it's always been. What's different is that Bang Back has brought new life to the corner at Howard and Rosewood after more than two years of vacancy.
If you're curious about what's happening on other corners of Shandon, or want a neighbor's read on how a specific block or listing fits into the bigger picture, Heather Shuler is always glad to talk it through. Schedule a consultation whenever you're ready.
