Tried to do the right thing in local and got penalized!

[centralplumbing]

Well after reading articles about having to hide your business address if you do not serve customers at your location, I did. I got the impression that this would not not penalize my business. A week later and my business does not show up in local maps for any search term. Traffic has dropped off and basically my company is invisible to people that want to find it, Even if they search within my zip code for a plumber.

[Doodled]

Does your business also have a Google+ page?

Google is in the middle of merging Google+ and Google Places which should sort these things out but in the meantime this might be a useful sticky plaster approach.

[Broland]

Set your page back to display address. Also check your listing in Google Map Maker. Let us know how it goes and if you need more help

[CatalysteMarketing]

"Set your page back to display address."

NO don't set it back to display address.
HUNDREDS of THOUSANDS of listings have been deleted for violating that guideline.

Just hiding address alone does not cause a ranking drop. Did you make any other changes?
Is your listing still live? Can you find it with a phone search on Google.

"Does your business also have a Google+ page?

Google is in the middle of merging Google+ and Google Places which should sort these things out but in the meantime this might be a useful sticky plaster approach."

NO service businesses with address hidden are NOT eligible to merge yet and it can cause all kinds of problems.

Plus all the experts including Blumenthal, myself and even now Jade from Google, recommend waiting to merge EVEN IF your listing qualifies (and few do) because there are still too many bugs and issues.