It’s only a matter of days before the beloved White Horse Tavern at 567 Hudson St., where the poet Dylan Thomas drank his last, will be sold to convicted tax fraud felon and former prison inmate Steven Croman.

The nostalgia lobby is up in arms. West Village preservationists are seeking landmark protection for the century-old interior of the tavern lest it be “vulnerable to destruction” by evil new owners who might turn it into a shoe store.

There were similar alarms over other historic eating venues that changed hands — like the Four Seasons, Gallagher’s, Café des Artistes, the Russian Tea Room. But all of them were nicely restored and revitalized by their new owners.

This death-by-landlord scenario is a common dystopian vision in New York City where eateries are supposedly wiped out en masse by new owners and their unaffordable rent increases. The New York Times blames it for pretty much anything — from the closing of a taco dive to the shuttering of a fancy place serving $35 entrees.

But in truth, the city has many more, not fewer, restaurants than it did two years ago.

New York boasted 23,560 food-and-drinking spots in the third quarter of 2018, a near-16 percent increase over 20,316 in the third quarter of 2016, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the city’s Independent Budget Office.

Those figures include fast-food outlets. But “full-service” restaurants, too, rose in the same two years — from 8,563 to 9,809, a near-15 percent increase (there were very slight drops in both categories from 2017-2018 but only by tiny percentages).

Yes, certain eateries at certain locations are sometimes forced out by rent hikes — usually when a cheap, decades-old lease expires.

But fewer restaurant closings can be blamed on greedy landlords than we’re led to believe. Look closely at just about every big-name shutdown, and you’ll find a completely different explanation.

Chef/owner Anita Lo, for example, attributed the 2017 shutdown of her popular Annisa not to any landlord issue, but to higher taxes, food and labor costs.

Red Cat owner Jimmy Bradley decided in 2018 he’d had enough of the grind after 20 years. So did George Kalogerakos, who closed the book on Lyric Diner after several decades in 2016.

La Sirena, which struggled from Day One, bought the farm last year after sexual abuse claims hit part owner Mario Batali. A split between partners — an increasingly common nightmare — led to the demise of splendid Italian eateries Convivio and Alto in 2011.

Most commonly, restaurants go dark because not enough people went there. Lousy management doomed super-pricey Betony in 2016, cheap and touristy Carnegie Deli in 2018 and scores more in between. No landlord problems: Betony had years left on its lease and the Carnegie Deli owner owned her building too.

If there are identifiable human “villains,” they are mostly restaurant operators who have the temerity to die. The passings of Elaine Kaufman in 2010 and of Great Jones Cafe owner Jim Moffett in 2018 doomed their storied establishments.

(Meanwhile, Croman has already agreed to lease the White Horse Tavern to veteran New York restaurateur Eytan Sugarman, who wants only to continue running it as a bar and restaurant.)

Nobody tells taller tales about restaurant rents than restaurateurs themselves. Danny Meyer blamed closing the original Union Square Cafe on “significantly higher rent.”

In a 2014 Times op-ed column that became a rallying cry, he wrote that “neighborhood” restaurants could no longer survive in Manhattan. Yet he magically reopened it in a much bigger space just a few blocks away one year later.

Superstar chef Bobby Flay moaned to the Times that high rents were going to “drive away all the people and places that make New York City interesting.” He said that with a straight face just a few months after he’d opened Gato, one of his largest places ever, on Lafayette Street downtown.

Fortunately, the market speaks louder than the whiners. We have a greater number and variety of places to eat, at every price point, than ever before — as anyone out for a stroll can see. And we’re blessed for it.