Two restaurants and a convenience store on the south side of Carthage closed their doors in recent weeks.
The KFC and A&W restaurant 2117 S. Garrison Ave., the TacoTown restaurant, 2230 Fairlawn Dr., and the T's Corner convenience store, 2807 S. Grand Ave., all closed their doors on or before New Years Day.
A sign on the KFC restaurant door encouraged patrons to go to the KFC in Webb City.
Rick Maynard, spokesman for the KFC corporate headquarters, said the franchisee, Peter Rook, with Table Rock Restaurants, had closed the Carthage restaurant for "business reasons."
Maynard said he did not have any more information about the closure on Friday.
A sign on the TacoTown restaurant said it was for sale because of the owner's poor health.
Montine Ness, wife of the TacoTown's owner, Tony Ness, said he had suffered from ill health for the past year and could not recover while running the restaurant.
Montine Ness said their son, Mike Ness, had operated the restaurant for a while, but he got another job and couldn't run it any more.
Efforts to contact Shawn Meister, believed to be the owner of T's Corner, were not successful on Friday.
Carthage Chamber of Commerce President John Bode said the closure of the three businesses was regrettable, but he didn't think they indicated a major problem in the Carthage economy.
"These are simply things that happen in business," Bode said. "Some people would say oh no, three small businesses closed, but if we've got the problems the federal government says we have with AIG taking billions in government money and Freddie and Fanny on the verge of collapse, we are probably not that bad off. We hate to lose any small business, but this community is resilient."
Bode said 2008 was a tough year, with the closure of the Cargill plant and layoffs at Leggett &Platt among other bad business news.
He said there were silver linings around those dark clouds.
"We had seven businesses that were hiring represented at the job fair we held for Cargill employees earlier this year," Bode said. "It's always possible that things will get worse, but it's also possible that things will get better. If people react negatively to the news, that reaction could make things worse. That's what happened in 1929, people thought there would be a crash, so they panicked and caused the crash."
