Over the longer term, we're all going to find out which specific spots out there are better than others for a restaurant. Since all restaurants, even the upper end ones, have relatively short average life spans, we will see devolution in some locations. There will be a greater variety of price points; wait for it. Some of the property owners will get there against their will, the market will force them there.
I can think of one scenario that would hasten it all along. Over the past few years we've had four storm events that just missed the needed timing to flood Boston badly (that is, they were offset from high tide by a bit instead of coinciding with high tide just right). If we had four such events hit the tidal timing just right, and were spaced out over a span of just a few years, the restaurant economy out there in the Seaport would get subjected to one wicked pissah stress test. (The real estate market more generally, too.) I bet there'd be cheaper places to eat thereafter, though fewer of them. Might be cheaper to buy one of those condos, too, once the insurance market adjusted.
