Friendly Banner's Restaurant at the southwest corner of Commercial Drive and East 12th was a Baskin-Robbins when I first walked past it in the mid-1990s. Not sure when B-R became a Banner's (1999? 2000?), but when it did, it offered an inexpensive all-day breakfast.
While Banner's billed itself as a "family restaurant," rarely did I see families of the nuclear variety. Nor did I see more than two people in any one of the twelve booths visible from the Commercial Drive side.
As Banner's neared its end (it closed in 2017), I never saw more than three people seated in the booth section. Rarer still were those seated together, or in neighbouring booths, or in booths less than two booths apart.
The sign in the window says "Free Wifi", but I never saw anyone operating a laptop, a tablet or a smart phone. If they were not bent over their plates, eating, they sat upright, motionless, a hand around their cup, staring straight ahead. None of the diners sat within eye contact of each other. Nor did they look at me when I walked past, pretending not to look at them.
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