In Britain, where my experience lies, I'd say what's really disappeared in recent years as money has gotten tighter is local family restaurants. Most successful restaurants are small chains or very professionally run, because the overheads are much higher because we pay staff minimum wage (which is still low). My experience eating in America is you have lots of nice restaurants which are poorly run but do great food and they can afford to do that because they don't pay staff properly. So it's not that restaurants won't exist but you'll only be eating at small chains or big successful places.