The other week I heard some news that shook me to the bone. The Country Cupboard, that wonderful restaurant and shopping complex on Route 15 above Lewisburg, was closing for good. For decades, the Country Cupboard has been our lunchtime destination when we went antiquing. About once a month, if not more frequently, we would leave home and head north. We were usually headed to Roller Mills Antique Mall or a speed run to the shops in Bloomsburg or perhaps going to an auction. Lunch was always at the Country Cupboard, where we consumed vast amounts of their mac and cheese (truly a separate food group from all others), the kids would get their wooden nickel for candy and our Christmas tree would get another ornament. As recently as December, we were there. It was just as we knew it. And now it is closing. This was not the first time that I have lost an old friend to a closing. We used to make a similar run south of the Pennsylvania border. We had a route of antique malls in Emmitsburg, Hagerstown and Frederick. And where was lunch? The Cozy in Thurmont, where our kids grew up on their fried clams and baked goods. It was where we based all our antiquing forays from, and I will never forget our oldest deciding he wanted to go there for his birthday since he so enjoyed the food. I write this column not strictly as an homage to those restaurants but to talk about change. We love our antiques, and that means we love the past. It is part of what we do. And that sense of the past also sometimes means we hate change and are creatures of historical habit. We will continue to go to the antique malls in Lewisburg and Frederick, but we will miss our favorite restaurants. I am sure we will find a new restaurant, but something has changed for us. Years ago, one of my first bosses in the museum world taught me the lesson of scoping out small, family-owned restaurants when I was needing lunch while out on business. He had an encyclopedic memory of those places, and I have tried over the years to assemble such a list. Like the Country Cupboard and the Cozy, families ran those places. They specialized in home cooking and were usually packed with locals at lunchtime. I am betting that most readers of the column have such places in mind, the kind of restaurants that remind you of your childhood with ham balls, roasted chicken, mac and cheese and other Pennsylvania food favorites. Hopefully your favorite is still open and that the next time you go out antiquing you can go there and revel in an extra piece of strawberry rhubarb pie. And if your restaurant has closed like my old friends, then pause a moment for the loss. Born to collect should be the motto of Peter Seiberts family. Raised in Central Pennsylvania, Seibert has been collecting and writing about antiques for more than three decades. By day, he is a museum director and has worked in Pennsylvania, Wyoming, Virginia and New Mexico. In addition, he advises and consults with auction houses throughout the Mid-Atlantic region, particularly about American furniture and decorative arts. Seiberts writings include books on photography, American fraternal societies and paintings. He and his family are restoring a 1905 arts and crafts house filled with years worth antique treasures found in shops, co-ops and at auctions.