And it seems that for every new restaurantfacade on Mass. Ave., another place shuts itsdoors.

Location, Location, Location

Harvard Square is by nature a hard place tosurvive, restaurateurs say.

The mix of students, tourists and locals is adifficult constituency to please.

Add high rents and bad parking, and HarvardSquare is not as ideal a restaurant site as thecrowds and lines would make it seem.

"It's counterintuitive. It's not a greatrestaurant locale," says James L. "Jim" Miller,co-owner of the Church Street grill, Fire & Ice.

He adds that attracting Boston residents isanother difficulty.

Moreover, tables empty in summer as studentshead home and residents retreat from the city.

This ever-shifting demographic can be the deathof restaurants.

"One of the reasons most restaurants in HarvardSquare fail [is because] in highly transientsituations, there are very few stablepopulations," says Joseph C. Khirallis, a videoproducer who grew up in Cambridge.

And for the restaurants, it's either adjust orfail.

At Sandrine's, co-owner Gwen Trost says theycut "way, way back" in summer.

"It's hard because most of our clientele isHarvard bound in some way, and if they live aroundhere, most of them head out in those months,"Trost says.

Basic Skills

Often, though, restaurateurs fail not becauseof the difficult location but because of theirlack of business skills.