A restaurant can have their rent doubled or tripled in a market like NYC, making profit for almost any food business impossible.

Lots of beloved spots have closed down here and have been replaced with condos and drug stores.

Even aside from this, and as others have pointed out - restaurants operate on razor thin margins. A large confluence of variables, some more controllable than others, need to come together in just the right way for a restaurant to have a chance of succeeding.