This kind of convivial, contained discussion has been encouraged by Facebook. Explaining his own re-envisioning of the platform, Mark Zuckerberg, the C.E.O., emphasized the importance of closed groups. “Now we’re focused on building the digital equivalent of the living room, where you can interact in all the ways you’d want privately,” he wrote in an Instagram post in April .

Grady Ellis , who created All Retail on Facebook and a retail blog called Ellispedia, grew up hearing about local retail geography and history from his grandfather, who was a butcher for grocery stores around Kansas City , Mo., “with a photographic memory.” Now his Facebook group allows its roughly 2,000 members the same opportunity to tell their own shopping-and-dining stories.

Oft-discussed topics in these groups include how defunct big-box real estate has been repurposed, the omnipresence of Dollar Generals (particularly in small towns) and the increasing sterility of chain restaurants and stores.

McDonald’s is frequently used in these groups as an example of what members perceive to be a loss of character in design. (“Why did McDonald’s go from a happy kid to a depressed adult?” one member recently asked, comparing a photo of the old yellow arches and red double-mansard roof to the industrial box design and color palette of newly opened locations.)

That question is emblematic of the sentiment behind these groups. There is a perceived lack of warmth in the commercial landscape that has revived an aesthetic interest in maximalism. Maybe it’s the whimsical design geometry of a ’90s Taco Bell — recalling the Memphis movement — or a stained-glass lamp from an old Pizza Hut that comforts us and takes us back to a time when things weren’t so brightly lit and austere. Like the smell of stale smoke baked into a hotel carpet, it may not feel clean but it’s familiar.