The one place I can compare Calis to is Praia da Rocha on the Algarve.
We've owned our place in Calis ten years this autumn and have owned our timeshare in Portugal a year longer.
On the face of it Calis has changed the most. Infrastructure is totally different than it was back then and local wealth has obviously increased many fold.
However one thing that has hardly changed is eating out and drinking out on the front (apart from the cost).
I can honestly say that apart from one or two 'higher class' places such as Sat and Bella Mamas (there are one or two others as well) it's pretty much the same along the front. I include the choice if menu in this as well.
Businesses come and go in both places but we always go back hoping our favourites are still thriving and new places have opened to offer more choice. Sadly that's not always the case.
Praia da Rocha had a massive makeover on the beach a few years back. A long wooden walkway, stretching about a mile, was constructed with bars and restaurants every few hundred yards. This added choice as well as superb places to sit and enjoy your lunch or dinner. However the main 'strip' has altered very little. The good places have survived whilst others have disappeared.
In our part of Turkey, however, the only areas that have really changed and improved are Fethiye and Koca Calis. The latter now offering around 5 or 6 places to eat and drink compared with the solitary Birlik ten years ago!
Mostly I can't recognise the Calis of 1993 these days but along the front it's hardly changed. They do need to up their game a little and fresh ideas are needed if they want to get me and the wife back eating there regularly. At the moment only Guvens has that dubious pleasure

Maybe one of the reasons for little change on the business front is that it's almost impossible for a foreigner to open (and survive) a business on his own - unlike Europe. Imagine the front with an array of Turkish, Chinese, Japanese, Indian, Irish, Spanish, Italian, English, Portuguese, French, German, etc etc restaurants on the front. That's almost exactly what we find in Portugal. Plus an immaculate beach thrown in.
Still love both places though
