Re: The Entertainment Book advertising- My only experience with those books is for PTA fundraising. So I imagine a lot of the local places here participate because of that. When I was in high school, I sold year book ads in 2 different cities and I doubt any of those businesses were calculating the ROI. It was more a community awareness thing. I was so happy when I learned my son’s new school does zero fundraisers.
I don’t know if it’s true but one theory in Chicago was that frequent Groupon offerings were a sign of eminent demise. These are not associated with a charity and are usually intended to drive traffic so seeing a place offering Groupons every month or two usually didn’t bode well.
A few of our favorite restaurants have shut down over the years. Reliable warning signs that the end is near include 1) losing their liquor license and 2) calling the local newspaper to denounce the city for issuing them citations for health violations.
One good sign is that the restaurant has been open for 3 years. The majority of restaurants opened last that long or less. That comes from a National Restaurant Association report that’s quite old now, they may have an even shorter lifespan now.
One of the big signs, is when it’s pretty obvious they aren’t paying full taxes. A really good Chinese place, and a good Thai place have both shut down in the last year. :(. But both of them , once they knew you, would let you know there is a silent discount for cash.
Decline in the quality of chicken dishes is my barometer. If it’s something requiring breast meat, the size goes down, or else it’s mushy, signifying the meat is heavily pumped. If it’s something where dark meat can be sneaked in, like chicken salad or chicken enchiladas, it will be.
Also, on pizza, the signifier is whole milk Mozzarella gives way to low-moisture part-skim, then to pre-shredded cheese where you can taste the chalky anticaking agent, then “pizza cheese” appears, for which there is no Federal (US) standards. Sometimes the quantity decreases, and they make more money from people who request extra cheese.
Staff abandoning a sinking ship. They know before the public and probably even before the owners or manager. They’ve already been there and done that.
It’s funny that both Steak & Ale and Bennigans were mentioned in this thread because I had one of each of those near me that were constantly busy and making money hand over fist but yet both closed when their parent companies did. So sometimes there is no warning…
“Sneaked in” - 
Chicken salad and/or enchiladas made with only white meat chicken would be tasteless. Not at all a sign someone is going out of business IMO. Rather, a sign they know how to cook.
In my state, restaurant people refer to a liquor license as “the license to print money”.
The Bennigan’s in my town did the same. The franchise owner re-opened it about a year later under a different name, but with almost the same menu (slightly different spices on the steaks), and seems to be doing fine.
Just in case anyone doesn’t realize it, victual is pronounced as ‘vittle’, making this a better pun than it would appear in written form.
Noticible cutbacks in staff and ‘extras’. I’ve seen restaurants when they first open have a hostess, hostess assistant, and wait staff. The bar area would have free nuts or snack mix or popcorn. They’d feature live music one or two days a week.
Come back several months later when they’re struggling and the music has been cut, no more complimentary bar snacks, and one of the working waitresses will seat you.
Funny you should mention this- for many a year, my reliable standards for ‘this business (not just restaurant, incidentally) is going down the drain’ were 1. referring to their employees as ‘associates’ or ‘team members’ instead of ‘employees’ and 2. referring to their customers as ‘guests’ instead of ‘customers’ (if they’re not a hotel). They were good rules that served me with complete accuracy, until two or three years ago, when all of a sudden it seemed everyone was using them, and now I have no sure guidelines.
The only thing close to a sure sign that a place is about to close is when its name switches from a chain’s name to a similar name, indicating that it is now under local ownership.
Other than that, most of the closures I have seen - and there have been quite a few, especially near where I work (I assume they think they can get the University of Phoenix crowd, and when they invariably don’t, they cut their losses and run; an Applebee’s has been empty for over three years, with no takers for the site) - have come all of a sudden. It reminded me of the Original All-Star Cafe in New York (owned by sports stars including Joe Montana, Ken Griffey, Jr., and Wayne Gretzky); one night, somebody from management entered the dining area and announced that the restaurant would be closing for good that night.
Yeah, I actually looked for a link that when clicked would give the audio, but no luck.
Thanks for noticing!
Never been to a Disney park, have you? 
I can I think of two cases where the closing of a restaurant was preceded by drastic cuts to a well-established menu.
Sometimes, drastic cuts to the menu are a sign that the place is going to survive. There’s a place not too far from me called Happy Dog. When they first opened, they had a huge menu, and all of the things on it were excellent, including many things that you couldn’t get most other places. Which is great for the customers, but it’s really not possible to stay in business with a menu that long and varied-- The costs to the restaurant are just too high. Well, about a year after they opened, they re-built the menu to be just hot dogs. They’re really good hot dogs, and you can get them any way you can imagine getting a hot dog, but it’s just hot dogs. And they’re now one of the hottest places in the city, and folks from clear across town (and the other side of town is a big deal in Cleveland) will refer to locations in that neighborhood as “Near Happy Dog”, and the folks they’re talking to will know what is meant.
In fact, I would venture that in most cases of a menu contraction preceding closing, the problem wasn’t actually the contraction itself, but that it was done too late. A restaurant that starts off with a narrow focus to begin with is more likely to succeed in the long run, and will never contract because they’re already there.
If they start having entertainment at the table like a magician or musician. I’m sure the manager is thinking that it will enhance the dining experience and generate more business. However, I personally hate that sort of stuff and will avoid any restaurant which does it.