I soon changed this method to simply renaming the page when the shop name changed and have done this ever since.
There are pros and cons to both approaches. Coffeeshop licences are issued to addresses rather than businesses so the name of the shop can be anything. Sometimes a name change is simply a whim of the owner. On other occasions it reflects a change of ownership or a takeover by a chain.
It could be argued that in some cases the change is so dramatic that the previous history is no longer relevant, e.g. Global Chillage to Happy Feelings. In other cases it's simply a revamp and is still basically the same shop, e.g. de Kuil to 420 Cafe. There is also an argument for carrying forward the history of a business at one address to a new one, such as Baba or Betty Boop.
The truth is that I often don't know the full story. For instance, is The Store still under the same ownership as The Doors? For this reason I find that sticking to the convention of renaming the pages and noting the old name is the best way to be consistent.
Forum Reviews
For some stoner reason I started a new convention when I launched the forum and introduced coffeeshop reviews here. For these I lumped together chains such as Bulldog, Rokerij and Stix.
That was fine until I later linked the forum reviews from the shop pages. This led to multiple shops being linked to the same forum topic. So, for instance, Stix and Stix 2 were linked to a combined Stix topic. This has left a bit of a mess as first Stix 2 became Solo and then Stix became Boerejongens Centre.
I think the best way forwards is to follow the convention of maintaining history against address throughout the site. I'll see what I can do to bring the forum into line with this but, in the meantime, please try to post shop reviews against addresses rather than business names, if you see what I mean.
If you think my approach is wrong, feel free to post your opinion here. I will, of course, feel free to carry on regardless. This is a dictatorship after all!
