Perhaps they couldn’t always remember the phone numbers of local schools or town halls, or even of friends, but many in the Upper Valley couldn’t forget this one — 643-6135. It was featured for years in a catchy radio jingle for Hanover’s Everything But Anchovies restaurant, which suddenly closed last week after 38 years, the owners declaring it had slipped into unprofitability.

We weren’t surprised by the lively reaction on social media — everyone is James Beard when judging pizza, apparently — but we were struck once again by how local businesses can be a touchstone of memory. They come and go, of course, and there are those who say that’s a good thing, as the free market sweeps away the old to make way for the new. But when the market favors chains whose biggest draws are low prices and fast (frantically so) delivery, count us among those who perceive losses mixed with gains.

Indeed, the pleasures of memory are on display whenever local history groups post photos of half-forgotten businesses on Facebook. Be it an early A&W Drive-In on the Miracle Mile in Lebanon or the orange-roofed Howard Johnson’s on Route 5 in White River Junction, people happily recall aunts who worked there, their own first jobs or favorite treats from childhood. A West Lebanon High School newsletter on display on Main Street in West Lebanon this week has a roll call of village businesses in the 1940s: a First National Store, Breezee’s Market, Kibling’s Department Store and Andy’s Diner, along with a fruit store, hardware store, the Red Cross Pharmacy and more. The list invites a stroll down memory lane, or stirs the imagination of those who came here later.

We suppose it’s possible that a chain restaurant of today will one day evoke such pleasures, but when a McDonald’s in Lebanon, N.H., is the same as one in Lebanon, Ohio, Lebanon, Va., or Lebanon, Pa., to what can memories attach?

Nostalgia might explain why it remains notable that The Little Store reopened in Lebanon last week. The nearly century-old store is indeed little, without the bright lights and gas pumps of convenience stores of today, and it has morphed through the years from a tiny market into a sandwich shop. In front is a small clock with “The Little Store” written on top that has earned iconic status. The new owners said they were surprised by how many customers turned out the first day and their excitement — a small victory for hope and memories.

As for commercial jingles, an Atlantic article last year explained that they’ve been mostly replaced by snippets from pop songs. For decades, jingles were as catchy as colds. Uncounted millions sang “I Wish I Were an Oscar Mayer Weiner,’’ or crooned that they’d like to buy the world a Coke, even though the notions were fanciful nonsense. The ad world has move on. Still, there might be some small satisfaction in knowing that the 643-6135 ditty lives on, even if EBAs does not.