Bill Coats grew up in west central Columbia and remembers, in the early 1960s, an old corner store at the junction of Sexton Road and McBaine Avenue. He didn’t shop there often because his parents thought it was safer for the kids to walk from their home on the south side of Worley Street to another market a few blocks south to avoid crossing the busy street.
Although those stores are long gone, Coats, now 58, has his own community market at McBaine and Sexton. Unitee Market was his chance to run his first business and fill the neighborhood’s need for a store within reasonable walking distance.