I miss: https://suni.tw/treemancafe/. I miss their coffee, cute drawn menu and food. It was great!

The new one that took over turned it into a spaghetti place. Then the spaghetti place closed (temporarily?). Running a restaurant in Zhuwei is tough.

It also puzzles me why new owners mess with a formula that worked. Countless times the original restaurant owner sells up, often for personal reasons. The new owners take over a viable business… and then proceed to mess up the formula before sales dive. Within 2 years the business closes. Permanently.

Another coffee shop opened nearby with a similar model to Treeman, perhaps less polished. They had a successful business but perhaps not as successful as the owners wished. They sold, the new restaurant that opened up at the same location was a Vietnamese place. Didn’t last two years. The one that opened in its place struggled. Lasted even less.

A burger business that I liked did that in Tianmu. New owners wanted to play run a business. Eat! Burger had a successful formula was open for a good few years. BadAss Burger took over after the owners sold. Lasted 3 years, amid complaints about its beef patties being frozen. Now it’s a Ramen store.

It takes talent to open a restaurant, sheer bloody-mindedness to keep it going so long, and guts to know when to close. Don’t underestimate successful restaurants, they are a rare breed. Too many close that we don’t even remember their names.