Home Care In Columbia, SC

WEST COLUMBIA — Gloria Alonzo often finds herself facing an impossible choice: feeding her family or paying the bills.

With the cost of food and household items ramping up to over $300 a week, Alonzo struggles to stretch the income her husband brings in from his construction job.

Andres Perez Gomez works in construction, and she stays at their West Columbia home with their 6-year-old son Emmanuel and 2-year-old Samuel.

Prioritizing is a challenge — Alonzo, 40, has to pay her bills first, and then sees what’s left over for food, clothes and other necessities.

In 2022, food prices increased faster than any year since 1979. Since the COVD-19 pandemic, food costs have risen almost 25 percent, according to the federal Department of Agriculture.

“It’s very difficult for us,” Alonzo told The Post and Courier in Spanish. “It becomes so exhausting when we just don’t have the food. It's a struggle to feed all of us.”

Alonzo and her family are among more than 700,000 people in the state who experience “food insecurity” — defined as a lack of reliable access to affordable healthy foods.

This comes as the result of either living in food “deserts” or food “swamps.”

An area is considered a “food desert” if the closest grocery store is at least a mile away. In rural areas, that distance grows to 10 miles. A lack of reliable public transportation and the closing of long-standing grocery stores exacerbates these conditions.

On the other end of the spectrum, “food swamps” are areas with a high concentration of “unhealthy food.” It’s harder to find clear cut food swamp neighborhoods because of the revolving door of businesses and menu items.

South Carolina has one of the highest prevalence of food insecurity in the country, according to a report from the state Food Security Council. Thirty-nine of the 46 counties in the state have food deserts located within them. Consequently, these are often low-income areas, according to Edward Simmer, interim director of the South Carolina Department of Public Health.

In the Columbia-area, food deserts tend to be located around the county lines, Simmer added. Food deserts are found across the Midlands, from Batesburg-Leesville, Cayce and West Columbia to Olympia, St. Andrews and Dentsville.

Seven percent of the state faces very low food security — above the national average of 4.7 percent.

“South Carolina as a whole, sadly, is the worst state in the nation, for what we call very low food security,” Simmer said. He defined “very low” as people who consistently go hungry at night. He added many of those people are children. It’s considered the most severe level of food insecurity.

Living in areas without proper access to food can lead to higher rates of chronic illnesses, like diabetes or cardiovascular disease, according to Andrew Kaczynski, a professor and researcher at the University of South Carolina and director of the Built Environment and Community Health Laboratory.

Walkability is a parallel concern that relates to food deserts, he added. It contributes to people not eating as healthy and simultaneously not getting exercise needed to burn off the calories from consuming more processed, unhealthy foods.

“Growing up in an unhealthy food environment and only having access to poor food choices is going to have all of these economic and social costs down the road that we don't always forecast,” he said.

Filling the gaps

With a reach of 20 counties across the state, organizations like Harvest Hope Food Bank are meeting the growing need of food insecurity. CEO Erinn Rowe said the need has only risen, especially after the Covid-19 pandemic.

“Inflation, the cost of food is still exponentially more expensive than it was five years ago," Rowe said.

"And what happens is all these normalized costs that are more expensive, they cut into the leftover money people have at the end of the month to buy food, and so they aren't able to make it paycheck to paycheck.”

For sisters Monique and Sherri Caughman, living with disabilities has directly impacted their access to food.

Sherri Caughman, 62, lives alone in her home in Lexington. She pays over $1,300 in rent, nearly $200 a month on utilities and $100 a month for internet. Between constant medical expenses and co-pays for the doctor for multiple sclerosis — an immune system disease — the money she receives from social security and her pension is spread thin.

“Once I balance all that out, I really don’t have money to purchase food,” she said.

Despite opting for the most inexpensive supermarkets and buying things when they’re on sale, food affordability remains a problem.

Because her disability limits how much she can work, Monique Caughman, 60, relies on food pantries because of her limited income. The West Columbia resident is on disability pay because of medical issues but tries to work part-time when she can. The pain spurred by lymphedema, fibromyalgia neuropathy and osteoarthritis, forces her to work even less hours than she’s allowed on disability.

“I wouldn’t eat because my money is just enough for my bills. There’s nothing left,” she said. “When you don’t have it coming in and it’s all going out, you don’t have anything else but to look to other sources to get food.”

Supplementing supermarkets

Food pantries have helped address food insecurity across the state, but they can only do so much.

According to Simmer, food insecurity is going down in the state, but food deserts remain an issue, and are indeed on the rise.

In areas with limited supermarkets, residents turn to less conventional sources of food, like dollar stores and gas stations.

“If it wasn't for Dollar General, there would be a whole lot more food deserts because they built that footprint that they're out in rural communities and do offer food supplies,” Rowe said.

Many of the options are often lower quality, shelf-stable, but ultimately highly processed and calorie dense.

Mobile food markets have popularized — utilized by nonprofits and government agencies alike – to reach the need in these areas, however, they’re only temporary solutions in nature.

The issue of not having a permanent grocery store still persists.

“Having a grocery store, having an everyday open source of fresh food is by far the best solution,” Simmer said. “There are ways that we can mitigate the impact of food deserts, by at least having food available periodically.”

April covers Lexington County at the Post and Courier. The best way to reach her is at [email protected]

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Dawn Staley has transformed the South Carolina women's basketball program into one of the best in the country over her 17 seasons as head coach. The Gamecocks have made the NCAA Tournament in 14 consecutive seasons, made seven Final Fours and won three national championships under Staley's guidance.

On Wednesday, April 30, Staley will be honored for her work leading the Gamecocks by the City of Columbia when they put up a statue of the iconic coach. The statue won't just be a tribute to her work in turning South Carolina into a powerhouse on the court, but also for her impact off the court and in the Columbia community.

The City of Columbia, in partnership with the Statues for Equality and generous community partners, is proud to unveil a statue honoring the legendary Dawn Staley, an icon whose impact reaches far beyond the basketball court. This tribute celebrates not only her championship legacy as a coach and player, but also her unwavering commitment to leadership, community empowerment, and uplifting future generations. Dawn Staley's influence continues to inspire both on and off the court, and this statue stands as a lasting symbol of excellence, resilience, and pride for Columbia and the entire state of South Carolina.

The statue, which was commissioned in 2023, will be unveiled at a 4:00 p.m. ET ceremony, but rather than being outside Colonial Life Arena where the Gamecocks play, it will instead by on the corner of Senate St. and Lincoln St. outside the university's Pastides Alumni Center. That is by the request of Staley, per The State, who wants the area outside the arena to be reserved for her players -- A'ja Wilson is immortalized outside Colonial Life with a statue currently.

Staley's statue was originally planned to be across the street from the South Carolina State House, but was moved to this location closer to where the Gamecocks play.

We'll find out Wednesday if the statue has Staley in some Louis Vuitton as she frequently wears on the sidelines.

COLUMBIA — A family-owned burger joint has closed its second location in Columbia after less than a year in operation.

Chubby's Burgers has closed its 106 Percival Rd. location, according to an April 24 post on the restaurant’s Facebook.

“After much deliberation, we have decided to close our Forest Acres location permanently,” the post read. “Thank you for all the patrons since our opening. Our location in Blythewood will continue to operate.”

April 24 was the location’s last day, according to a comment made by the restaurant under the post.

The Percival Road store opened in August 2024, branded as a Forest Acres location but was addressed in Columbia.

“It was a combination of business and personal reasons but the Blythewood location is doing very well,” the Chubby’s account posted in a response to a comment under the post announcing the closure.

Chubby’s originated as a food truck in Summer 2020, after owner Chris Sarant lost his job during the COVID-19 pandemic, The Post and Courier previously reported.

The original Blythewood brick-and-mortar restaurant opened in February 2022. The restaurant caught fire and was forced to close down for a few weeks shortly after opening.

COLUMBIA — The city is looking at ways to put more overhead power and communication lines underground to free up space for trees and help beautify areas of the city.

Mayor Daniel Rickenmann asked the city’s Health, Social and Environmental Affairs committee to look at a potential ordinance to help identify funding and project opportunities. The committee met on April 22 to discuss the idea.

Columbia’s potential ordinance would not be as aggressive as something like what Hilton Head passed in 2004. The 15-year, $35 million project buried over 100 miles of overhead power lines on the island.

The benefits are obvious. It frees up more space to plant trees, decreases the risk of power outages from falling trees or car accidents, and it simply looks nicer, officials said.

“We would love to have all utilities in the urban core and neighborhoods underground, that'd be great,” Columbia Water director Clint Shealy said in an interview with The Post and Courier.

“You can eliminate trees falling on power lines, vehicular impacts to power poles that can create power outages for our citizens. If that infrastructure is underground, it cleans things up from a beautification standpoint, but it's also very reliable.”

Dominion Energy and the Midlands Business Leadership Group have discussed doing some core sampling to get a better idea of where undergrounding is more feasible.

Tree canopy

Jim Irvin, a member of the city’s tree and appearance commission, said that when he moved to Columbia in 1991 from the Lowcountry, he noticed that many people did not see how beautiful the city was, and could be.

“Over the last 35 years, I’ve seen it move in the right direction and get better and better,” he told city councilmembers during the April 22 meeting.

During the city’s recent overhaul of its downtown planning guidelines, residents ranked street trees for shade and tree-lined barriers between pedestrians and traffic as the two most important factors in making a great downtown street.

In 2022, University of South Carolina researchers found that Columbia lost almost 22 percent of its tree canopy from 2005 to 2019.

The loss of trees in the city has contributed to the city’s many heat islands — temperatures in Columbia can spike several degrees higher than the surrounding area because of a lack of trees and abundance of pavement, according to a 2022 heat map study.

Despite the losses, some areas of the city have seen their canopy bloom over the last few decades, partly made possible by undergrounding utilities. Irvin highlighted Main Street, the Vista, Statehouse grounds and USC campus as examples.

The portion of Assembly Street between Greene and Pendleton streets highlights the difference undergrounding can make.

Mature trees provide shade for pedestrians on the side of the street where USC’s Koger Center for the Arts sits, and where utilities have been undergrounded. On the other side: overhead power lines dangle over the CVS, Wendy’s and gas station, where there is little tree coverage.

“The more you get utilities underground, the more opportunity there is to have trees along those shaded sidewalks without having to chop them up a lot to make room for utilities,” Irvin said.

Irvin recommended that the city pursue a tree canopy inventory that would allow them to be more proactive in replacing aging trees and improving its canopy.

Councilwoman Aditi Bussells worried about finding funding for such a project.

A partly USDA-funded program to plant nearly 2,000 trees across Columbia was canceled in March by the Trump Administration amid federal funding cuts.

An expensive endeavor

Undergrounding utilities is expensive. That’s the no. 1 issue, officials explained.

According to Rickenmann, undergrounding utilities on Gervais Street from Huger to Harden Street could cost between $80 and $100 million.

“It's very expensive,” Mayor Daniel Rickenmann said in an interview. “New construction is a lot easier, but parts of our city, because it's so old, is very challenging. And so there's been a lot of discussions with the different business community and Dominion.”

Every year, Dominion puts at least $500,000 toward the city’s non-standard service fund, a pot of money that can be used to pay for undergrounding utilities or other projects.

The city has done $35 million worth of undergrounding projects since about 2004, with Dominion footing about half of that bill.

The developer on the eight-story apartment complex project planned at the corner of Bull Street and Elmwood Avenue will pay nearly $1 million to underground the overhead power lines around the busy intersection.

In our Inside Look stories, The State's journalists take you inside places around South Carolina that you maybe haven't seen before. Read more. Story idea? [email protected].

A new wine and cocktail bar is headed to West Columbia, bringing with it comfortable vibes and a nod to the popular jazz cafes of Japan.

Ikie Lu Record Club is currently being prepped at 601 N. Lucas St. in West Columbia. The wine bar will be in a building that was formerly a Spanish-language Pentecostal church, just off Sunset Boulevard, not far from the Jarvis Klapman Bridge.

Owner Matt Catchpole and friends, family, and other helpers were hard at work prepping the Ikie Lu space when a reporter from The State dropped by last week. While the wine bar and cocktail spot isn’t open yet — Catchpole is hoping for some soft opening events in late May ahead of a fuller opening later in the summer — it hosted a collaborative kitchen event on April 24 as part of the Columbia Food & Wine Festival.

Catchpole has spent a career in the restaurant industry across multiple states, and is a former general manager at West Columbia’s Terra. In the last few years he has also been a consultant for Publick House in Columbia, which underwent an extensive renovation in 2023 and marked its 30th anniversary last year.

Now he’s getting ready to debut Ikie Lu Record Club, an ambitious project that will combine elements of wine and cocktail culture, a food menu with seafood flair, mid-century-style decor and an appreciation of jazz and other music played on vinyl records. The name of the establishment is a nod to Catchpole’s 98-year-old grandmother, Ida Louise, whose nickname is Ikie Lu.

While details for the restaurant are still being refined, Catchpole said he has big plans for the space.

“It will be a restaurant and cocktail/wine bar,” he said “We are going to focus pretty heavily on champagne. We will have cocktails, but we are trying to keep the type and style pretty focused. We are going to celebrate doing the simple things well and really executing well, rather than trying to come up with 45 flavors of the week.”

The Ikie Lu owner said the food menu will “lean a little seafood heavy,” and he mentioned possible items such as shrimp rolls and boards that could feature seafood, meats and cheeses. There will be space for indoor and outdoor dining, with counter service inside and a window to the patio where customers will be able to order from outside.

The inside space at Ikie Lu has been carefully curated for comfort and conversation. There are low-slung leather chairs, coffee tables and bookshelves. Large windows along the north side of the room offer abundant natural light, and there are plants throughout the space. A framed photo of Ikie Lu herself even adorns one of the shelves.

“From the very beginning when I looked at this I wanted to do a thing where you feel like you are in a large community living room,” Catchpole said. “You want that immersive experience when you go to a restaurant.”

And a centerpiece of the experience will be music coming from the wine bar’s high-fidelity record player. Catchpole said Chris Wenner, of West Columbia’s Seaboard Recording Studio, helped him put together Ikie Lu’s sound system, and jazz, blues and other styles will be the soundtrack of the house.

“We can play music on this hi-fi system we designed and be really, really proud of the richness and quality of the music you get out of it,” Catchpole said.

The entire enterprise is a nod to Japanese jazz kissas. As noted by tokyo.us, a jazz kissa in Japan is a place that offers “a relaxed and intimate atmosphere where patrons can enjoy listening to jazz music on high-quality audio systems while sipping drinks and subtly interacting with the cafe’s proprietor and other patrons.”

Ikie Lu Record Club will also have a retail element, where customers can purchase cookbooks and books about wine, as well as bottles of wine.

As the swirl of preparation and progress continued around him during the recent conversation, Catchpole couldn’t hide his enthusiasm to bring Ikie Lu to West Columbia.

“I’m so happy to be doing this,” the restaurateur said, with a grin. “I’m so stoked.”

This story was originally published April 28, 2025 at 5:00 AM.

The State

Chris Trainor is a retail reporter for The State and has been working for newspapers in South Carolina for more than 20 years, including previous stops at the (Greenwood) Index-Journal and the (Columbia) Free Times. He is the winner of a host of South Carolina Press Association awards, including honors in column writing, government beat reporting, profile writing, food writing, business beat reporting, election coverage, social media and more.

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