A chowhounder offered this up for thought and it brought an
immediate visceral reaction from me. (I know you're all
thinking, "Ranger? Visceral? No way!")

The poster wrote:
"Over the years they were your 'go to' place for a good meal in
the neighborhood, to pick up a pizza, get your bagel & coffee
or to carry out your favorite ethnic food. The
owner/chef/manager/staff knew you by sight if not by name. You
were a loyal customer and used to sing their praises. They were
independent and local, not part of a dreaded chain.

"At some point, you had to break-up with them. Not for economic
reasons, but because something else wasn't working for you
anymore. It was a conscious decision, almost as hard as
breaking it off with your hairdresser or a decent boyfriend or
girlfriend. For your own good, the relationship had to end! You'll
still miss the old favorite restaurant or at least you'll miss
their glory days, the convenience, the comfortable feeling you
got & finding their replacement won't be easy, but it has to be
done.

"[..] What was it that made you decide to break-up with an old
favorite restaurant?"

The restaurant that I will no longer visit was a pancake house.
I frequented it daily (morning, lunch, sometimes both meals)
for eight years. I loved spackling the 49er pancakes with
butter, wolfing down the gi-normous! apple pancake solo,
getting the jitters from two cups of coffee, and treating
family and friends to this 3-diamond eatery.

Then the day came when the owners came by my table and sat down
with another fellow. They introduced him as the new owner and
explained how they were leaving to spend more time with their
families. I wished them well and hoped to see them open another
restaurant; they were very good restaurateurs.

The next day, two servers that had been there from the first
day of operation were missing from the staff. The following day
everyone from the front of house were gone. The service went
from highly competent to comedically incompetent. I was willing
to cut them some slack, though, because even monkeys can
eventually be taught.

I was wrong.

I talked to the owner about the changes I'd noticed and found
him uncaring. I reduced my visits from daily to monthly, to
yearly, to almost nothing for years. I wrote A Letter after one
particularly unsatisfactory visit, ccing the corporate
headquarters. I received a nice form letter telling me how
important my feedback was and how Mr. Soandso was glad to have
me as a customer.

I took Daughter-unit Beta in because she's a budding foodie and
willing to try many different foods.

We were terribly unimpressed. Remember those monkeys I
mentioned earlier? They were still there and still untrained.

In a virtually empty restaurant, we waited to be seated. I
finally went in search of the hostess. She was in the "office"
talking on her cell. She did at least hang up and seat us.

We waited for our tea and coffee, promised by said hostess.
Beta went in search of her at that point. Again she was on the
phone in the office, only very put out that she was expected to
do anything beyond yakking.

We waited for our order to be taken -- the waitress was taking
her break -- but did scramble to take our order.

When our food did finally arrived, I knew at once that it'd set
up under the heat lamps for a long time. The manager decided to
walk around the room at that point, so I call him over and
pointed at our dishes. At that point the two of us got up and
walked out.

That was the last chance for this place. The relationship is
closed.

The Ranger