The Slim Chickens location at 7544 Garners Ferry Road.
Chris Trainor
chtrainor@thestate.com
A third Columbia-area location of a national chain that specializes in chicken fingers is now closed.
The Slim Chickens restaurant at 7544 Garners Ferry Road in the Lower Richland area of Columbia has closed. The Garners Ferry restaurant is no longer listed on the “locations” page of the Slim Chickens website. The restaurant was closed and locked up when a reporter went by on both Monday and Tuesday during what normally would have been business hours. Multiple calls to the restaurant Monday and Tuesday during what would have been business hours went unanswered.
The Garners Ferry Slim Chickens closure has been a topic of conversation on the popular Lower Richland Community Facebook page this week, with commenters noting the last day was Sunday. The post had more than 100 comments as of Wednesday morning, with some lamenting the closing.
This marks the third Slim Chickens closure in the Columbia area in recent months. The location on Beltline Boulevard in Forest Acres shuttered in July, while the location off Killian Road in northeast Columbia exited in August.
According to the locations page of the Slim Chickens website, the chain has three remaining South Carolina restaurants, in Florence, Moncks Corner and Myrtle Beach.
Slim Chickens was founded in Arkansas and expanded across the U.S. in recent years. There are about 215 locations nationwide, according to data site ScrapeHero.
This story was originally published September 30, 2026 at 10:34 AM.
Chris Trainor is a retail reporter for The State and has been working for newspapers in South Carolina for more than 21 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.
Dining and Cooking