So, this is anecdotal, and it's not true at the moment (because the end of the Santa Cruz wharf just fell into the ocean, and now the clam chowder restaurants are closed), but ...

... I had an ex who was a huge clam chowder fan, so she did her own "experiment" and tried every chowder-serving restaurant on the Santa Cruz wharf (I think there were seven).

Her completely unscientific finding was that the very best chowder was at the end of the wharf, and generally speaking the chowder got worse as you got closer to the start of the pier (ie. the closest place to The Boardwalk ... where all the tourists come).

It makes perfect sense to me: if people come to your restaurant because of its location, you don't put much effort into quality. If you're far from the walk-in traffic, you need to do something (like make really delicious chowder) to get people to walk out to you.