An article in last Thursday's paper reported on the recent closures of several restaurants over the past year. But had we gone back several years further, it's likely the trend would still have held up. New Tooele Valley restaurants failing after only a year or two in business has come to seem as natural as the changing of seasons.

This isn't what any of us want however. Most folks are ravenous for more sit-down dining options close to home. The restaurateurs themselves would clearly like to make a going concern of their establishments. And government officials should be interested in increasing the number of viable restaurants not only from a general economic development standpoint -- restaurants create jobs, add tax revenues, and have a strong multiplier effect on the local economy -- but also because good restaurants are a strong component of almost all downtown revitalization efforts.

For these reasons, we'd like to see more help offered to start-up restaurateurs to enable them to survive. Right now, too many restaurants are going out of business, despite serving good food, because their owners are cooks first and business people second. They lack training in everything from building menus that make sense in terms of cost and preparation time, to maintaining adequate cash reserves, to marketing their product to diners.

The new Tooele County small business center -- proposed to open in the old J.C. Penney's building -- should develop business-plan resources specifically for new restaurateurs, and make them aware such resources exist. The Tooele County Chamber of Commerce also has a role to play by providing support services, promoting new restaurants to its members, and perhaps even staging chamber functions at new restaurants. Perhaps local government, too, can do more in terms of start-up incentives to help new eateries get off the ground. Finally, if diners really want better food closer to home, all of us have to make a point of patronizing good local restaurants rather than driving into Salt Lake City.

Nationwide, 60 percent of new restaurants fail in the first three years, according to statistics from the Small Business Administration and the Bureau of Labor Statistics. We should take steps to increase those odds of success here at home. A few good new restaurants could mean a great deal to our community, but we'll only get and keep these establishments if we're all committed to their cause.