? Definition of Business Failure: Business that ceased operation following assignment or bankruptcy; ceased operation after foreclosure or attaching; voluntary withdrawal leaving unpaid debts. It is a common assumption in the restaurant industry that restaurants fail at an exceedingly high rate, the highest failure rates in the U. S. economy. In researching this topic, statistics numbers and percentages fly around routinely. All give somewhat the same concept; in the starting years, most restaurants fail. The most often cited stat ....