At long last, Columbus, the bargains are back.

Ollie’s Bargain Outlet is officially on its way, setting up shop in the former Bargain Hunt location, filling a void since Dirt Cheap closed in 2024, followed by Bargain Hunt in 2025.

If you’ve never been, Ollie’s is the nation’s largest retailer of closeout merchandise and excess inventory, which is a fancy way of saying name-brand stuff at slashed prices. It sells anything from housewares, flooring, food, cookware, electronics to snacks.

According to Tom Kuypers, Ollie’s senior vice president of marketing, the Columbus store is expected to open in late spring, with an official date to be announced closer to opening day. Once open, you can check out Ollie’s 9 a.m.-9 p.m. Monday through Saturday and 10 a.m.-7 p.m. on Sundays. The location will be about 30,000 square feet and will mark Mississippi’s 11th Ollie’s.

Founded in 1982 in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, Ollie’s was the brainchild of Mark Butler, Mort Bernstein, Oliver “Ollie” Rosenberg and Harry Coverman. What started as a single store has grown to more than 640 locations nationwide.

The closest Ollie’s to us is in Tupelo, and any time I make the trek to Chili’s, I always swing by and come home with a couple of gems. For Columbus shoppers, Ollie’s fills a familiar gap: the thrill of the hunt, the joy of walking out feeling like you beat the system and the satisfaction of asking a friend, “Guess how much I paid for this?”

Also in town, a business celebrated its new location. Spell Bound Tattoo and Piercing, formerly known as Whimsy Tattoo, recently held its grand opening at 4059 MS-50. According to its Facebook, Spell Bound is officially taking walk-in piercings 2-7 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays.

Starkville folks, it’s officially time.

After more than a year of waiting, Starkville’s second Waffle House location at 975 Hwy. 12 E. is set to open Monday, according to City Planner Daniel Havelin. I broke the waffle news back in April 2024, and I’ve been patiently waiting ever since.

The iconic yellow-and-black beacon is lit. The booths are in place. I’ve even spotted the coffee pots, standing by and ready to put in the work. All signs point to my wife and I getting hash browns scattered, smothered and covered.

Waffle House first opened in Georgia in 1955 and now boasts more than 1,900 locations across 25 states. My family and I? Fully obsessed. For fun, here are a few of my favorite Waffle House stats: every year, the amount of bacon served would stretch roughly 25,000 miles. That’s the entire circumference of the Earth. If you poured all the coffee served annually into one place, you’d fill eight Olympic-sized swimming pools. Since opening its doors, Waffle House has served nearly 5 billion eggs and 2.2 billion waffles.

It’s not just breakfast, though. It’s infrastructure.

Waffle House plays a vital role in American society. It’s where you end up after a late-night road trip or a Matchbox Twenty concert, where you recover from a post-tailgate nap or camp out in a corner booth trying to finish a thesis with unlimited coffee refills. It has been there for all of us, in good times and bad.

So much so that it inspired the “Waffle House Index,” coined by former FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate. His logic was simple: if you arrive after a disaster and the Waffle House is closed, that’s when you know it’s time to get to work. Monday can’t come soon enough.

Finally, heading over to West Point, a new antique shop is celebrating with a ribbon-cutting. Mockingbird Lane Antique Store, located at 26451 E. Main St., will host its opening at noon Feb. 26, with refreshments and shopping all day. The shop is open 10 a.m.–4 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday.
I’ll see y’all next week.

Former Dispatch reporter Mary Pollitz writes weekly about interesting business news. Have a tip? Send it to [email protected].