I think people also get used to not going to a particular location. If the previous restaurant wasn’t too good, people will be a little inclined not to go to the next one in the location either. A string of restaurants signals that something is “wrong” with the place.
In our town, that was literal–when the 30-yo fish restaurant closed and a cheap Chinese buffet moved in, it did OK until the health dept. discovered the horrific filth in the kitchen. Three successive restaurants failed in that location because no one was going to go to the place with That Kitchen. Now it’s a Boot Barn and doing just fine.
In Arlington, VA, there’s a building at Lee Highway and N. Lexington that appears to have begun life as a Pizza Hut but has gone through about an owner a year for as long as my sister has lived near there. It was a pho joint for a while, and a Salvadorean place, and God knows how many others. It’s a better-than-average taproom/wine bar at present (I think; I moved pretty far away last year). In fact, I loved every iteration this place ever had. But its parking lot was too small and it wasn’t walking distance from any place you could park without getting towed. Its only hope for survival has been to be a hip, secret favorite of the locals and that never happened.
There was a corner restaurant in a nearby suburb (of Chicago) which was a “cursed” location for a long time. It went through a few different restaurants at least before it finally succeeded as a breakfast/lunch diner. I’m not sure why this one stuck - maybe it marketed to the right crowd, maybe it’s the big signs in the window advertising their specials.
They’re on a northwest corner, and their parking lot is only accessible from one side, tucked behind the building. The road coming from the north is on a hill, and the buildings next to it obscure it from that way, so you’re on it before you realize “oh hey, a new restaurant opened there” and at that point you’re in the intersection and gone. If you’re coming from the south, you have to make a left-turn at a light with no left turn signal and lots of traffic coming straight going south to block your way. The way from the west doesn’t get much traffic, and the way from the east is usually driven by commuters intending to turn north or south on their way home, or by people going shopping elsewhere.
This location in Kansas City, MO has been the place where so many restaurant dreams go to die. It obviously started life as a Taco Bell. They moved out and built a much larger one ten blocks south. It sat empty for years then a string of luckless hopefuls attempted making a go of it.
The shame of it is some of them were very good. One Lebanese place that survived for more than a year was one of the best examples of that cuisine in the city. But they rarely got reviewed and few people wanted to experience fine dining at a former Taco Bell.
It’s now a used car dealership. Hopefully that will succeed and nobody else will lose their shirt trying to serve food.