I managed restaurants for a few years. One consistent mistake that I saw, was that restaurant owners would rent more space than they needed. I think the owners over-estimated how popular things were going to be.

Because of this, one of the easiest ways to improve your odds of success, when you own a restaurant, is to lease LESS space than you need. Basically there's a lot of good reasons to make your customers wait in line:

1) You're not paying to rent the sidewalk in front of your restaurant

2) Having a few customers waiting out front is a great advertisement for your place.

Obviously, this isn't great for customers, but if you're a restaurateur it's awesome.

Out in Vegas, restaurants and clubs routinely pay people to wait out front to make their place seem "in-demand."

Absolutely. At the end of the day, you need to maximize dollars per square foot (or seat). Better to do 3 turns of 25 covers than to do 1 turn of 75 covers.