After 26 years, the Richmond Night Market has announced that 2026 is its final season.

It is not alone. This same year, longtime Vancouver spots are closing their doors too, including Bayside Lounge in the West End after 47 years. Longevity, it turns out, protects no one.

But not every closure is the same. There are two kinds of endings in business, and knowing the difference matters more than most owners think.

The forced exit

This is the ending nobody chooses. It happens when the numbers stop working and the owner finds out too late: food and rent costs climbing, customers' habits changing, a lease renewal that changes the math completely.

Businesses rarely collapse overnight. They drift — month by month, without anyone checking the research: what things actually cost, what customers actually want now, what the lease actually says. By the time the problem is obvious, the options are gone. The closure decides for them.

The chosen exit

The other kind of ending looks very different. The owner reads the signs early and closes on their own terms, with dignity intact.

But here is the trap even successful owners fall into: after 20 or 30 years, the whole business lives in the founder's head. The recipes, the supplier relationships, the seasonal staffing patterns, the regulars' names — none of it is written down. There is no management layer ready to take over, no operations manual, no second-generation plan.

So the business cannot be sold. It can only be closed. Not because it failed, but because it cannot exist without its founder.

Exit is part of the plan, not the opposite of success

The question is never whether you will eventually step away. You will. The question is whether you will sell a business or just close a door — and that difference is planning.

Three things turn a forced ending into a chosen one:

1. Know your numbers before trouble arrives, not after.

Review costs, margins, and lease terms while you still have room to act. A problem found early is a decision. A problem found late is a crisis.

2. Build systems that work without you.

Document how the business actually runs: suppliers, routines, passwords, key relationships. A business that runs on systems is a business someone else can buy. A business that runs on you is a job with no exit.

3. Decide your "enough" in advance.

Pick the point where selling or closing on your terms beats grinding on. Owners who decide this early leave with value intact. Owners who never decide it leave when they have no choice left.

The lesson from 26 years

A 26-year run is a success, full stop. The lesson is not that the Night Market failed. It is that every business, no matter how long it lasts, eventually faces the same question: end it on your terms, or wait until the terms are chosen for you.

Planning your exit is not giving up. It is the final business skill — and the one most owners never practise.

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