Why does everything always have to change?

Duke's Coffee Shop, on the Sunset Strip, is one of my longtime favorite stops. It's been run by the same family for decades and hasn't changed a lick in the twenty-odd years I've been going there.

A couple of weeks ago I was driving on Sunset Boulevard and saw their windows papered over. I feared they had become a victim of the economy.

But a few days later I saw the paper had come down and they were still open. I walked in and noticed the place had been re-modeled (very orange now). I knew this wasn't a god sign.

Then I saw the "new" menu -- which is basically the same choices but with higher prices. Come to find out Duke's had been sold and was operating under new ownership. They're open until 2 a.m. now, something the old lady who used to own the place would never allow. "I don't want those drunk kids from the Whiskey-a-go-go in here," she once told me.

The food's not as good anymore and the prices are a lot higher and the bloom is off the rose. So sad.