I've been watching the trends in Pocatello. The large sit down restaurants are going smoke free. It has increased their patronage. The small bars and small restaurant/bar combinations are offering limited non-smoking sections. Denny's is the only sitdown restaurant in town that positively reeks of tobacco. It is also the only 24-hour sit down restaurant in a 40 mile radius. When the bars close at 2 AM, the seats in Denny's fill to the max with the smoking patrons from the bars. Jack-in-the-Box keeps a drive-through open 24 hours.
Here in Bangor there just aren't that many choices if you're looking for a
good restaurant. We're talking an area where the folks think that Olive Garden is a real Italian joint, a proposition that anyone from NY, NJ, CT, RI or MA would get a chuckle out of.
One of the best and oldest, Pilot's Grill, just went belly up this past winter.
The Denny's here is on the highway, so all the state troopers are cooping in there late at night and the drinkers don't go near the place.
Bangor and Brewer are about evenly split between smoking and non-smoking establishments, so each crowd can pretty much avoid each other if they so desire, but the chances of getting anything but a pedestrian meal in either venue is nil.