For the last 9 years, we’ve been coming to The Pub, a locally owned restaurant serving British pub-style food. Over the years, what we loved about it was being regulars. For a while, they’d even bring us our order without asking what we wanted.

Then, things started changing. It became part of a larger chain of stores across Ohio and Kentucky. This seemed awesome at first. But management was ever farther away, and the decisions were less about the customers and more about the dollars.

The first big blow was that our personalized mugs went away. Seems a bit silly, perhaps, but it was a decision by management to favor new and single visit customers over regulars. The single visit customers complained that we had a mug and they didn’t.

Gradually, “our” waitresses left, and we’d hear “is this your first time to the Pub?” More often than not.

Then O’Shea left.

Then Mark left.

Then they changed the menu and removed a lot of items less familiar to the the American audience. Which was kind of the point of a British-themed place.

And today is Leigh Ann’s last day.

Time to find a new place.