Brookline's annual license renewal process is often a good barometer of what's happening in the town's culinary scene. This year, five Brookline restaurants and food shops have not filed for renewal in the new year because they've already closed or soon will:

• Java Stop – A coffee and sandwich shop that had the misfortune of being located in the building at 4 Brookline Place, which is being demolished to make way for an enormous new medical office building
• Publick House Provisions – When it opened a few years ago, this store was billed as the place to get all the stuff you wanted to take home from the Public but couldn't for legal reasons. In addition to its wide selection of bottled beers and appropriate glassware, the store offered a selection of artisanal cheeses and gourmet snacks.
• Minsok – A Korean Japanese restaurant located at School and Harvard streets in Brookline Village, this place closed down sometime last summer. A new restaurant called Charcoal Bistro Du Japon filed paperwork to take over the space back in August, but the project appears to have stalled mid paint job.
• Andreas Mediterranean Cuisine – A Putterham Circle staple, this place served everything from bacon burgers to shish kebabs.
• Kashmir Indian Food and Spices – Food columnists Shanna Giora-Gorfa was very disappointed when she visited this Coolidge Corner shop for a recent piece on home-cooked Indian food and found it closed. Brookline health inspectors shut the business down after it lost electricity a few months ago and it apparently never re-opened.