Dear Barkeep

We all used to visit the same neighbohood bar -- your bar. It was agreed that it was a friendly place to hang out and converse at all hours. Sure, sometimes it was unruly, but it was still "our" place. Sure, you were (and are) the proprietor, but no one much complained when you didn't have time to stop by for a chat; you're a busy guy, and we easily kept ourselves entertained for years on end.

Then, there was a fire. You couldn't help that. The insurance money came in, and you rebuilt it quickly enough. But the remodeling was pretty shabby. Given what you had to spend on it, one of the patrons even offered to do it right... for nothing. You didn't take him up on it.

Months went by, and we noticed the service was no longer fast or particularly friendly. A lot of loud folks started dropping in, drowning out and disrupting our conversations, and you did little at first, then nothing at all.

It's not like we didn't try to help you keep us around, but you didn't seem to listen, or care. It's not even like we never want people to visit your place anymore -- we know there are some people who will never consider NOT going to your place every night, and we really hope they stop in to visit with the old gang at the new place from time to time. However, a lot of us just prefer to meet up regularly where it seems we're wanted, and where the owner cares when we're not happy with the service, or where we know the owner will toss out the people who only stop in to disrupt, harass and/or aggrevate the regulars.

So, some of us built a bar that tried to recapture the feeling of the old place we all loved so much.

We hope you will try to start over, and make your place what it once was -- I think we'd all be happy to feel welcome, again. But honestly, there's no other option at this point. If you're just tired of running a place like you do, please, hang out with us at the new place, and do whatever else makes you happy instead of doing what most of us suspect does NOT make you happy, any longer.
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