If you're asking why the landlord doesn't just leave the site vacant? They're offsetting costs or obviating vacancy taxes or both. There are a lot of reasons why it's beneficial to keep the lights on and babysit a place.

If you're asking why the landlord minds having a real tenant instead? The landlord doesn't want a real lessor that actually values the location, holds a 10+ year lease, invests money for improvements, makes weird modifications, etc. They want a junk business they can kick to the curb when the time comes.

Often the landlord and the placeholder business are the same, behind the scenes, renting from themselves. No hassle when it's time for the deep pocketed tenant/buyer to move in. All you need is a low cost property manager to look in on the place once a week, make sure the "staff" are actually showing up, and keep the plumbing/heat/electrical working.

This

> 10+ year lease

I haven’t had a ton of experience with commercial property, but I have enough to know that at least where I live 10+ year leases aren’t common.

5 is much more common even for businesses spending significant money on buildout.

But also the kind of businesses the article is talking about wouldn’t require extensive buildout, so they would be much more amenable to shorter terms.

There are other reasons $4 lunch bowls are never going to happen in the us. Much higher labor costs (despite what the article said about similar minimum wage) is the biggest one.

> All you need is a low cost property manager to look in on the place once a week, make sure the "staff" are actually showing up, and keep the plumbing/heat/electrical working.

They could do that. Or they could actually make some income by renting it out instead of spending $50-100k on a fake business waiting for a payday that may never come.

There are many locations that are never going to attract a renter with deep pockets. And even in locations that will, it doesn’t take many years running a fake business to erase any eventual profits.