fitz needs to take a closer inspection of why he has been successful and why other previously successful small businesses in manhattan no longer are. he can blame it on local government, the business district, customers, chains, etc., but hibachi hut isn't blameless.
i give fitz credit for investing in his product and trying to improve it. he has a loyal customer base, which always helps, but GPC has evolved from being a print magazine and a message board to something more all encompassing. he has podcasts and videos and other multimedia content, and this content is being produced by people he hired to full-time and part-time positions - writers, photographers, videographers, and so on.
you can debate the quality of GPC's content, and many of you have. but fitz has tried to improve his product, and has invested enough into his business that a potential competitor would be foolish to try to compete with him. in short, he hasn't been complacent, and deserves credit for that.
my guess, and this is just a guess, is that hibachi hut got complacent somewhere along the way. the customer base that they've depended on for so many years might be older, or poorer, or dying, or whatever. but what has hibachi hut done to reach new, younger customers? what have they done to get students through the door?
if you run a local business in an area populated by students (enrollment is ~25k at last check) and can't find a way to reach them, you're going to struggle. students aren't loyal to unknown long-time local establishments. they're loyal to great food at cheap prices, and if you can't have both, you better have one of the two.
hibachi hut is out of business because too many students thought they had neither.
