Molly and Selena: CBS News reported last week on a trend that we’re noticing all too often as we criss-cross the country: struggling local business. As often as possible, we hit up local restaurants. The food is usually tastier, the service more personalized, and we’re always happy to give our money to a community business instead of a corporate chain.
But as the economy sinks ever lower, there just aren’t as many of those mom-and-pop joints.
In Springfield, Missouri last month, we pulled up to Tortilla’s, a family-owned Mexican restaurant. The owners stepped outside to snap a photo of the Wienermobile – and tell us that they had closed shop two days ago, for good.
In search of espresso and pie in a Houston suburb in September, we detoured to a local coffee shop…only to meet the owners who were shutting off the building’s water and electricity that morning.
The CBS piece focused on a shuttered Elkhart, Indiana barbecue joint and spelled out just how troubling the situation is all around—for entrepreneurs, for their employees, for local culture. Least of all, it’s disappointing for travelers like us who want a bite of something authentic.
The silver lining? We’re more determined to skip the chains. Fellow Lost Girls, are you with us?
Totally with you. Unless I have completely no other choice, I only eat at non-chains while traveling. My thinking is: Why would you travel all that way just to live the same way you do at home? I just don't understand traveling to a different place and then not fully embracing what makes that place different.
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