If a landlord thinks a tenant can survive after the COVID economic crisis passes, they're usually motivated to work on payment plans, according to Luis Martinez-Monfort, founding partner of law firm Gardner Brewer Martinez-Monfort.

"The appetite to work through forbearance from both the tenant and landlord is pretty high because I don't think landlords believe, dependent upon the type of tenant they have, that there's someone who's immediately going to backfill a space," Martinez-Monfort says.

In a stable economy, Martinez-Monfort says there might be multiple groups that want to try their business concept into your restaurant. During COVID, that isn't happening. "I don't know if there are a lot of restaurant concepts knocking on the door behind a tenant who failed," he says. "There's not a lot of people seeking to start restaurants right now."