I am sure the owner was not completely innocent, but the city was a big part of the problem too. They are the landlord, but then they took away a lot of the parking for that location, meaning that F&L got to fight over limited street parking, which basically put it out of the banquet and party business. The city then refused to renegotiate the lease.
The city made a business decision not to renegotiate, and the owner made a business decision not to piss hundreds of thousands of dollars away on a location that could no longer be profitable at the current rent. Now Middletown has a vacant storefront on Main Street that can compete with all the other vacant storefronts on Main Street for the 2 businesses that may want to open downtown in any given year.
I thought MIddletown's was the best of the three that I had been to. I like the Hartford location better than Plainville, although both are good. First and last is a different take on pizza without going crazy.