> Did the landlord actually sign a 15+ year contract? Did they fail to bump the rent over a couple of renewals?

Probably. The landlord probably got a premium up front, too, for it being associated with a hotel.

The contract probably had bumps, but there were probably limits to the bumps and the real estate got more valuable faster than the bump limits.

This is a good lesson about contracts. A contract is only as good as the money you can expend on lawyers to defend it.

Commercial leases are long. 30 years isn't unheard.

> I'd think there's gotta be a better solution before things come to that.

Well, for whom? If you have the contract that says the rent is a quarter of the market rate why would you agree to pay more?

Because you should think of contracts as underspecified interfaces between two parties. If I'm actually unhappy with you and want out, I can perform my side of the deal adversarially - technically and legally in line with the contract, but otherwise not exactly what you expected. So you have some incentive to keep me happy and renegotiate up the rate voluntarily, since otherwise I will act adversarially on all the things that are not explicitly specified in the contract.

This can work depending on the extent to which the contract is underspecified. You will note, for instance, that the hotel cut off room-service access to this restaurant. Clearly they didn't specify room-service availability in the contract, and so on.

Better for both parties, if they have a long-term outlook.

I'd say you want to be paying a market rent so that your landlord is happy with you. It's in their incentive to keep you there and happy, and they're likely to go out of their way to keep you happy. If you manage to get locked into a contract to pay under market rent, then they will be unhappy with you and motivated to go out of their way to hurt your business and make your life difficult.

Granted, this may not be that common of a viewpoint in the restaurant industry, though. Or in the NYC rental industry.