My wife and I recently had breakfast at a favorite haunt. As usual, there was a wait for a table. When our names were added to the list, I provided my cell phone number so the restaurant could text us when our table was ready. The first sign that the restaurant was under new ownership came with that text—it included a link to a corporate privacy policy. The more telling evidence, however, came with the meal itself. The once-celebrated poached eggs atop braised short ribs with caramelized onions—a dish that had become their signature—was now unrecognizable. The short ribs were tough, the onions undercooked, and the eggs small and rubbery. The omelet we ordered was no better; it tasted as if made from egg substitutes, devoid of the farm-fresh flavor we had come to expect. When we raised our concerns, our server—a stranger to the restaurant’s long-standing culture of warmth—rebuked us for not complaining sooner, explaining that the food could have been used “for training purposes.” Needless to say, we will not return. What we experienced is a familiar story in corporate acquisitions. A buyer purchases a thriving business—a market leader that had repeatedly outperformed competitors—only to impose its own systems and practices, dismantling the very qualities that made the target successful. Rather than observing and learning from the former owners, who had built a loyal following and an efficient operation, the acquirer rushes to remake the business in its own image, eliminating the “secret sauce” that set it apart. This…
