Boston restaurants keep closing. Here’s what we need to do to fix it.

Restaurants close, as surely as they open. The closing of these particular restaurants feels notable. They are successful. They helped turn their corner of the South End into a dining destination. They’ve been open for a decade, with loyal followings. And they are run by one of Boston’s strongest, most-experienced hospitality teams — the kind of people who pay back investors and give back to the community.

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If the bottom line doesn’t work for them, who can it work for?

Boston dining feels as if it has reached a tipping point. This is a city where a liquor license can sell for more than half a million dollars. Rent and other expenses keep rising while thin margins narrow further. The cost of ingredients fluctuates so dramatically, restaurants can’t update their menu prices fast enough to keep up. And well-known, well-funded out-of-town businesses — Cactus Club Cafe (Canada), Hawksmoor (London), Major Food Group (New York), Union Square Hospitality Group (New York) — are moving in at a rapid rate, replicating concepts that already exist elsewhere.

They see Boston as an opportunity. Developers and landlords see them as a good bet. Small, local, independent restaurants keep fighting. Over the last year, in fact, they’ve noticeably upped their game — perhaps in response to the presence of the Michelin Guide, which included Boston for the first time in 2025. But the landscape is much more challenging than it was when places like Biba, Clio, Hamersley’s Bistro, L’Espalier, Olives, Radius, Rialto, and so many others flourished here.

Bar Mezzana, No Relation, and Shore Leave will close at the end of the year. “I do think the economy is going to come back, but we all kind of looked at each other and said: Do we want to grind it out three to four years to get there?” said co-owner Colin Lynch of the decision.Reagan Byrne

In March, I received a message from the team behind Nine, the restaurant that took over the former No. 9 Park space in Beacon Hill. “Since opening, we’ve had our share of ups and downs in this economy, but we’re so proud of the team that’s stuck with us through it all,” it read. “It would mean everything to be able to reward that loyalty with a busy, thriving restaurant — especially before the bigger city chains start moving in.” That was not to be. Nine closed in June, after less than a year in business.

A month later, Seaport restaurant Chickadee followed, after eight years at the industrial end of the neighborhood. Another excellent independent restaurant with experienced operators, gone.

Ted Kilpatrick (left) and John DaSilva ran Chickadee for eight years. “We see articles comparing Boston [dining] to Portland and Providence. Often people are putting us at No. 3,” DaSilva said.Matthew J. Lee/Globe staff

“It’s an expensive city to live in, so people are tightening the belt. People are leaving, unfortunately,” said Chickadee chef and co-owner John DaSilva. “The labor shortage, too . . . . With the talent gap and lack of training, it’s almost like we as operators are hiring line cooks as sous chefs and sous chefs as chefs de cuisine.”

Just above us is Portland. Just below us is Providence, home to culinary school Johnson & Wales. Both cities have excellent, interesting dining scenes where independent businesses can thrive. Both offer a lower cost of living and operating.

“We see articles comparing Boston [dining] to Portland and Providence. Often people are putting us at No. 3,” DaSilva said. “Maybe you’re a young cook who went to Johnson & Wales. You used to come to Boston. Now it’s, why would you, when they’re doing cool and interesting [things] in Providence or Portland — or New York? If Boston is almost as expensive, you might as well move to New York and work for the best chefs in the country.”

This doesn’t scream “world-class city.”

A dish of somen with squid and caviar at 311 Omakase, which was awarded Boston’s first and only Michelin star last year.John Tlumacki/Globe Staff

When the Michelin Guide announced its results for Boston, 311 Omakase received one star; six restaurants received a Bib Gourmand designation, connoting good value; and 19 restaurants were “recommended.” Even just a decade ago, Michelin would have found many more restaurants to consider. Tourism marketing bureau Meet Boston reportedly spent $1 million to bring the prestigious dining awards here for three years. But if the city isn’t friendly to the kind of restaurants that win those awards, why bother? This year, there wasn’t a single Boston nominee for the James Beard Awards.

Things need to change, before it is too late. Boston’s character is at stake.

That’s not hyperbole. The flavor of a city’s restaurant landscape helps determine the flavor of the city itself. A diverse, risk-taking, high-quality dining scene — a “cool” dining scene — brings in visitors and their dollars. More important, it attracts residents and keeps them here. It makes a city a desirable place to call home. It makes our high residential rents seem more worth it. Restaurants are where we gather, what we line up for, what we follow (almost) as closely as sports. They are the center of our weekend plans and social lives.

It won’t feel like Boston anymore if we can’t say: Hey, want to meet for dim sum in Chinatown, tacos in East Boston, pho in Fields Corner, Haitian food in Mattapan, Italian food in the North End, cocktails in South Boston, dinner in the South End? It won’t feel like Boston anymore if the hot new restaurant is always an outpost of a chain, or another iteration of a dominant restaurant group’s aesthetic, just with different spices.

There are many good landlords in this city, and Lynch and DaSilva stress their strong relationships with theirs. But we cannot count on landlords to prioritize local, independent restaurants without incentive or requirement. We cannot make it solely diners’ responsibility to keep their favorite restaurants in business — especially as dining grows ever more expensive, and diners’ dollars dearer.

We need intentional, concerted plans and policies from the city itself in order to reverse course.

It wouldn’t feel like Boston if we couldn’t gather for dim sum in Chinatown, tacos in East Boston (these are from Taqueria Jalisco), pho in Fields Corner, Haitian food in Mattapan, Italian food in the North End, cocktails in South Boston, and dinner in the South End.Craig F. Walker/Globe Staff

Easier said than done, and Boston is certainly working on it — creating free liquor licenses, starting entrepreneur training programs like the new BizUnlocked, which graduated its first class this summer, and more.

I recently had a rich and lively conversation with City Councilor Brian Worrell about what might help. He spoke of streamlining the notoriously onerous permitting process, making restaurant and transportation hours later, connecting more neighborhoods by rail, including skills like culinary arts in the public school curriculum, creating more cultural districts like Little Saigon in Dorchester, and creating pathways for business owners to purchase their spaces, thus keeping expenses more predictable.

There is a will. There are ways. But the restaurant scene needs to be someone’s priority. Boston has had a food czar and a nightlife czar. It needs a dedicated person to drive change and find solutions, and to work with and coordinate all of the city’s stakeholders, in the name of creating the rich, diverse, soulful, ambitious, exciting, and uniquely Boston restaurant scene the entire city deserves.

Boston needs a restaurant czar.

Devra First can be reached at devra.first@globe.com. Follow her on Instagram @devra_first.