Locate in a spot that has failed several times?

Some time ago, someone asked comments on locations that seemed to have a history of failure for restaurants, and whether some such spots are just bad, by definition.

As a Business and Commercial Real Estate Broker, I am currently working on a location on which the bank has foreclosed.  It has been a restaurant for many years...and it has had a succession of owners/operators in that time.  In analyzing a potential Buyer, I have reflected on this question and come up with some interesting thoughts.

When it first opened, very successfully, but years ago, this location was the center of theater and symphony activity, from two, very upscale venues.  The entertainment regularly brought in a higher level of socio-economically advantaged people, from which the restaurant, just as regularly benefitted. 

However, over time the neighborhood business became more blue collar oriented; where it was once populated by insurance companies, banks and medical offices, the buildings were then more filled with smaller companies, some more industrially oriented, with employees that earn less and in lower numbers.  The restaurant was sold and the round of failures began.

One of the current characteristics of the neighborhood is the increasing presence of a local 18,000-student university, and a smaller, more specialized college.  The theater is still there, but the shows are fewer and cater less to the higher incomed population.  The symphony is doing better than several years ago, but still struggles tremendously, and never regained is former popularity.

Yet the traffic, in terms of general volume, continues to be maintained and even grow, again largely due to the local schools.  Noting that traffic, the latest restaurateur set out to replicate the original luster of the place, invested heavily in expensive finishes, created incredible entrees and prices that accompanied all of this...and failed within eighteen months.  And this has been the history of the several owners, as well.

The point of all of this is that no one, within the past ten to twelve years, has apparently recognized the changes in the demographics.  Is the property cursed?  No; but perhaps the owners have been.

In any business, whether it is food, cars, homes - you gotta give the people what they want!  And as a Broker, I see this all too frequently, with new operations.  Being a great Chef does you no good, if the local population cannot appreciate your skills and creations.  Would you put a bar and grill featuring topless waitresses, in beautiful downtown Tehran?  Why would you put an expensive restaurant in a neghborhood filled with students, who are rooming with three other people in a one-bedroom apartment to save money? 

Just a thought...