Some grim stats care of Nation’s Restaurant News today: 5,204 restaurants have closed since spring of 2009 (2,521 of them quick-service restaurants and 2,683 of them full-service restaurants). Independent operators were hit especially hard — 5,093 of the closures were independents, while only 439 were chains. And there’s also this: “NPD’s CREST research service reported that visits to restaurants in the United States declined by 3 percent for the 12 months ended in May 2010. Consumer spending at restaurants fell 1 percent in that same period, the first decline in dollars the firm has reported since it began tracking foodservice industry sales in 1976, NPD said.”