What about the little guy? (part three) - aka - Resto du vilage - my favourite diner no more

Today, I went to my (formerly) favourite diner for my regular meal of three eggs (over easy), with sausages, home fries, toast (no butter) and coffee. And boy was I greeted with a surprised, and not a pleasant one for the owner too... I walked in, around 12:15 p.m., on a Sunday afternoon. In all my years there, Sundays are very busy for greasy spoon breakfasts. I mean, there are some off weeks, but that happens rarely. But this seemed to be more of a common occurrence when the owner decided to not only raise prices yet again by about 5 - 10%, but also decided to take out the: "taxes included". So, today, I walk into the restaurant, and it was like a ghost town. there were only a couple of tables that were occupied, and I would say a good 60 - 70% of the tables were not occupied. On top of that, my favourite waitress, who knows my order by heart, and knows that I am a coffee addict, stopped working there, and that last week was her last week. I found out that she now works at Chez Cora.

So... More and more reasons for me to stop going to this restaurant... Price raises every year, but not really justified, considering that the quality is not increasing, and the prices are. I understand that prices increase because of inflation, whatever, but at a certain point, it passes the consumer value of what he/she believes is worth it... When I found out that the prices increased again, there were really two things that kept me going... (And I already sort of had one foot out the door): The coffee, and the waitress. And now that the waitress is gone, I don't think the coffee is good enough to keep me to stay... I could get good coffee at Tim Horton's...

And on top of that, I did some price comparison between the two places... At Chez Cora, I could get two eggs, bacon or sausage, home fries, toast and coffee for $5.25 plus tax. At Resto du village, I get three eggs, bacon, ham or sausage, home fries, toast and coffee for $4.75 plus tax... I think now that it's only the coffee that I would go for, I will just fork out an extra $0.75 + tax + tip for a better ambiance... Especially since I know that my favourite waitress will be working there.

What's even worse, when I paid the cash today, I was digging around for money, and I paid the guy a $5. (The total was $5.36 - which he automatically rounded up to $5.40). After he took the $5 bill, he automatically shut the drawer. When I dug out a loonie, he just told me to leave it there, so he got more tip than he deserved. I mean, I don't take much back, I just take the dime back, and a dime is not a huge amount of money, but it's the principle that counts.

Seriously: When I went to the restaurant three years ago, my meal was $4.00 (taxes included), and then it increased to $4.30 (taxes included), and then it was $4.50 (taxes included), and then now it's $4.75 (taxes not included). This was a time span of three years. I don't think that this type of increase is justified over three years. Every time the price went up, I went to the restaurant less and less... At first, I would be there like two or three times a week (including the breakfast on Sunday), and then the first price increase, I would go once or twice a week (including the breakfast on Sunday0. After the second increase, I would only go once a week (for the breakfast), and on some very odd/rare occasions, I would go a second time. Once they put the price up to $4.75, I swore that I would only go once a week for the breakfast, and half my foot was already out the door, because as soon as I found a place that does good coffee, I was going to leave.

As the title suggested - Resto du village, my favourite diner no longer.