Many of us have fallen victim to the old vanishing trick that Hong Kong developers love to play: turning your favourite antique teahouse into a gaudy serviced apartment block.
Nor are dollar-laden makeovers in the hospitality industry immune to the impatience of owners, landlords or wannabe tycoons. Give a swanky bar and restaurant a couple of years and then, just as it has developed a loyal clientele, rip it all out overnight for the sake of trying to be different.
A similar fate may have befallen brasserie French Window, for example, the Gallic classic that formerly surveyed Victoria Harbour from IFC Mall in Central. Vertical gardens along the inside of the 50-metre tunnel entrance set a romantic tone heightened by - appropriately - French windows in textured glass, floor lanterns and wooden panelling.
The work of Hong Kong design company AB Concept, the restaurant, billed as a celebration of French culture, opened in 2009 - and has already been superseded by another eatery-industry player.
But French Window lives on, if only in the pages of hefty volume that is Restaurant & Bar Design, released this year by art and design publisher Taschen.
The book is a celebration of venues nominated for the annual, global Restaurant & Bar Design Awards from 2010 (when French Window made the shortlist) to 2013.
Awards founder and Italian restaurateur Marco Rebora explains in his foreword: "The Restaurant & Bar Design Awards are the only ones in the world dedicated to the design of food and beverage spaces … from ships to airports, museums to burger vans, Michelin-star establishments to pop-ups.