RoadsideOnline

My worst thoughts have now been confirmed -- the interior has suffered a great loss as well. Part of the Mayfair counter ripped out. Floor patched up with tile. New booths match ext. roof. Melrose is next.

Wow, do these guys have money to burn. Instead of just running these two diners well, they've run them down in only 2-3 years, after a half century of good management. Because of this, and due to their inept management, they've created the need to make major changes to the 55-year old diner as if the diner building is the problem. Funny that is. Jack Mulholland and his family ran the place exactly as it was, and from what I heard grossed $3M a year with people lined up out the door.

How ironic (and certainly not surprising) that Sysco and US Foodservice -- the same self-serving companies that sold themselves as the friend of the mom & pop diner owner / operator --- would ultimately be in part, the cause of their demise.

The Sysco program is the same slippery slope as was de-regulating the airlines. Sure, the immediate result were cheap airline tickets. But the devolution of air travel was cemented the day deregulation began.  Same for the diner.  The day you sign on to Sysco, you've turned your diner into every other place serving the same glop.

I stand by every thoughtful word I carefully wrote. I happen to support Carol, and the struggle I see firsthand with many diner operators. But Carol already collected the RI sales tax money once. If the issue were in regard to the collection of income tax, I would accept the position that these could be delayed, and that a forced close of the business would be heavy handed and too much. Over the top. But in this case, Carol not only has unpaid income tax, but she has also collected sales tax that she has not remitted. That money was never her money. There is a difference. I am sympathetic, but there are limits.

Like Dutch Elm disease, the Liberty Elm is rotting from within. I'm guessing we share many of the same views on Carol's situation. Yes, we sympathize and support her. Feel bad for her. But I'm left with an underlying annoying uneasy feeling about the $25,000 in sales tax she collected, then spent. I understand the scenario, and I hope her bail out plan works. But this business of donation cash jars and customers giving her money to pay the RI state she ALREADY collected once from her customers is messy and a sorry scene.