The biggest prey of the exuberance surrounding daily deal offers closed for renovations. Yet, to the apparent surprise of those waiting to cash in their coupons, it has reopened under a different name.

Marlon's Meat is the new moniker of the midtown Toronto organic butcher shop — formerly known as The Butchers — that offered deep discounts through a slew of coupon companies last spring. The inability to meet the demands of 21,000 bargain hunters resulted in owner Marlon Pather trying to set aside specific evening hours for redemption — with police protection for staff.

Now, the renovated store is back on Twitter in the effort to placate the still-unsatisfied customers of services like Buytopia, Dealfind, Dealgetters, Dealticker, TeamSave and Webpiggy.

Of course, none of those can claim the $12.7 billion valuation recently bestowed upon the brand they were trying to emulate, Groupon — although they were eager to sweep its sawdust.

Despite all the skeptics about whether daily deals are a sustainable concept, the Butchers saga suggests that the market for these operations will quickly thin out, in favour of intermediaries trusted not to leave both businesses and customers in the lurch.

With the exception of Dealfind, who gave refunds to those who asked, there was apparently no turning back from the investment once a virtual coupon was clipped.

While the Butchers debacle was being complained about in every corner of the internet, though, Canadian newspaper publishers were scrambling to figure out how to leverage their local advertising relationships into direct cashflow. Postmedia Network's gamble was called SwarmJam while Torstar has started a national push for WagJag.

The aesthetics are generally ripped off from Groupon: a short-term offer triggered by few sign-ups — to encourage social media distribution — along with a whimsical description of its value. But there is only so much demand for a cheaper bikini wax — or any other discounts built on the potential of repeat visits.

Giving away $400 in premium meat for $99, on the other hand, was something Marlon could have used discouragement from. Side effects included a posting that accused the store of using filler in the sausages. Surely, the blowback led some to wonder if it could ever be worth trying to run any small business at all in this new world of Groupon.

So, the perseverance might even make for a good comeback story in the end, although the past association could also be unavoidable. Recently, a WagJag offer from The Butcher Shoppe incorporated a list of independent locations around the city where its more realistic bargain could be picked up — one of those turned out to be Marlon's Meat.