The recent news that Miller’s Restaurant will be closing next month after nearly 55 years has caused many of its dismayed loyal customers to wonder where they can go now to celebrate their big family occasions and holidays or just to enjoy an evening out.

Considering that the Main Street landmark is the oldest family-run restaurant in a town that has few of them left – Pilots Grill closed in 2002, after 62 years – the answer to their question is becoming increasingly obvious.

National chain restaurants now dominate the local dining landscape, so take your pick.

As the lunch crowds began to arrive at Miller’s on Monday, owner John Miller, son of founder Sonny Miller, reflected on the many changes that caused him to sell the restaurant for $3.8 million to Penn National, which plans to install some 400 slot machines there and use it as a temporary gaming racino.

Although the decision to move the Class A high school basketball tournament and all of its hungry fans from the Bangor Auditorium was the most recent factor in his decision, Miller said, the proliferation of large chain restaurants at the Bangor Mall and the arrival of the Interstate 395 bypass were what eventually doomed the well-known eatery.

“The extension of 395 took people directly toward Bar Harbor for the first time,” said Miller, who took over the restaurant from his father in 1987. “Before that, all that traffic used to come right by our door. Every car passed our dooryard. That was a big downturn for us.”

The explosion of development around the mall in the last decade or more, specifically the profusion of national chain restaurants, also increasingly nibbled away at Miller’s already limited local customer base and made it an anachronism that simply couldn’t hold its own anymore. Whereas many of the large chains are theme-styled establishments that depend heavily on advertising to market their offerings to a specific clientele, Miller said, his restaurant had no choice but to try to be everything to everybody.

“We’ve had to cater to people from the young to the senior citizens,” he said of his 550-seat restaurant with the off-track betting operation downstairs. “And we became a dinosaur because we were too large, and our expenses overrode our gross revenues. There are so many restaurant choices out there at the mall, which is another whole city, that driving over to Main Street is not as important for people anymore.”

While Miller doesn’t begrudge the chains their place in the city – many do a terrific job, he said – each necessarily lacks an ingredient that has always been the foundation for the independently owned and operated family restaurants such as Miller’s.

“Our customers come not only for the good food and service but because of the heart and soul of this place,” he said. “It’s so much a part of the community. You know what’s going on in their families and they know what’s going on in ours. With all the support this city has given us, it’s important to give back to the community. And we always have. That’s not something you get from the big chain operations.”

For Sonny Miller, said his son, it was the guiding principle that made the restaurant a local institution over the decades. Miller, now 78, opened his first restaurant on Washington Street in 1951 and moved it to Dutton Street several years later. When that restaurant was destroyed by fire in 1963, the elder Miller moved it to its present Main Street location, then the site of Aunt Molly’s restaurant.

“My father started buying up houses around it and the restaurant began to grow,” Miller said. “It continued to grow through the 1970s and ’80s, too, but the brakes were put on when the chains started coming to town.”

Miller said the decision to sell has been bittersweet for his father. Although his family’s identity has been tied up in that restaurant for more than 50 years, the elder Miller is relieved that the business struggles of the last few years will soon end.

“During my father’s lifetime he could read the last chapter of the book,” his son said.

Miller said he plans to take some time off – a rare luxury during his 18 years in the demanding business – and spend as much of it as possible with his 7-year-old daughter, Hannah.

“They say life begins at 40, and I’m there,” he said. “So now I’ll clear my head for a while and decide what to do with the next phase of my life.”

He sold the restaurant but not its name, leaving open the distinct possibility that diners in the Bangor area may not have seen the last of a Miller-run restaurant after all.

“Restaurants are in my blood, so who knows?” he said. “But whatever happens, we certainly had a great run.”