I wouldn't mind owning a restaurant, especially as I get older - I work in internet marketing, and I'm assuming sooner or later I'm going to become "irrelevant" in this line of work due to my age. Owning a restaurant would probably be a more secure form of income in my older years, assuming the restaurant does reasonably well. My biggest concern would be weathering the slow periods when the restaurant isn't doing so well, and being able to take big losses on food and other supplies I invested in going bad and having to be replaced.
I spent my late teens and early 20's working in several restaurants, so I am used to the grind so to speak when it comes with getting slammed with lunch and dinner rushes, as well as dealing with the public in terms of serving and managing. Personally I would prefer a restaurant that was more along the lines of a "fast food" style place rather than a sit down establishment with servers. It's easier to keep a line of people moving along than it is to keep tables rotating throughout the evening.
I enjoy doing stuff like prep work in the mornings, so that wouldn't really be a big deal to me. But the hard part would be closing down the kitchen at night and doing all the sloppy closing work. The last thing I would want to be doing is stuff like changing oil in the fryers and cleaning them all out, as well as scrubbing the griddles/grills clean, cleaning and changing the grease traps, etc... Hopefully I would be able to afford some sort of night crew to come in and handle this for me.
You make a valid point but for some it's the pleasure of seeing people actually enjoy something they have a hand in preparing and getting paid for it. There is a customer who used to own a restaurant and still talks about the joy she got from hearing all the great comments about her dishes. She confesses it was hard work but she got real satisfaction from it.She is well along in years and her face lights up when she starts to talk about it. Hers is a story I like to tell.
