Editor, Gazette-Journal:

Regrettably, the White Dog Restaurant/B&B has closed. It’s difficult to judge the seriousness of this loss to the community, but a net loss it is. In the 20 years I have enjoyed retirement as a "come here" there have been three such enterprises. Each in turn has prospered briefly, then withered and finally "died." Their histories seem to reflect, in a way, the commercial/cultural "edge" on which Mathews seems eternally poised. It could be just another small worn-out run-down rural village on the edge of the Bay, but there has been some success in re-wiring it as an artist colony/tourist-attracting destination. It has been suggested that Mathews, with less than 9,000 citizens, has more churches (30) and more restaurants (8-10) than it can support. Maybe. There are clearly just not quite enough people who want to be able to have a cocktail/lunch, or dinner, in a venue with a different ambience and richer broader menu. Sadly, such folk (who also patr...