Times are tough throughout the Golden State as our economy slowly recovers from its hangover. While value stores and fast food joints are seeing abnormally high profits, decades old family-owned restaurants are being hit especially hard. In the last three months alone, nearly 4,000 family-operations were shut down due to their inability to compete with 99-cent menus. Reader Alec Weinstein sent in the following picture of his older brother, a once-proud restaurateur who lost his business a little over a month ago.

Fortunately, unlike Alec’s testosterone deficient brother, the rest of these hard working entrepreneurs are not going without a fight. In the Palo Alto area, several restaurants owners have painted extra lines in their parking lots for daily four square tournaments. While newcomers are often dumbfounded to find a bunch of adults jumping around on poorly painted pavement shouting and throwing balls around, native Palo Alto residents are accustomed to this uncanny ritual.

Dennis Ham of Sunrise Diner explains, “The process is actually very simple. We have two tournaments every day. A couple of hours before the lunch rush and a couple of hours before the dinner rush. The game is called four square. The person who ends up in the fourth square earns the title of ‘Mayor’. To incentivize folks to play, our mayor not only receives the awesome title but also gets free food.”

“I think it’s a brilliant idea,” says Tim McGregor, a former YouFace employee. “After YouFace tanked, I have been bumming off of friends and food stamps. Having the ability to win my food by playing a game I love is astounding. Plus, most of the folks who don’t win mayorship usually eat at the restaurant anyways because they are too tired to go anywhere else.”

As more restaurants in the Palo Alto region yield to this tradition, restaurant owners are thinking about joining forces to rent a public bulletin board to post daily tournament results. These ingenious entrepreneurs are also debating whether to issue paper badges for traits like superior four square skills and sportsmanship. “People love to feel special,” explains Dennis. “By creating irrational desires for silly badges, we hope to drive even more people to eat our food.”