Prices for food commodities also fell sharply. “It saved all these companies that we thought were going bankrupt,” Mr. West said.

The most crowded sector of the industry is midprice restaurants, which include chains like Applebee’s and Chili’s. Mr. West estimated that as many as 13,000 midprice restaurants would have to close to balance supply and demand and return the industry to prerecession levels of profitability.

The oversupply is partly a result of the economics of the restaurant chains, which often keep underperforming restaurants open as long as they are generating enough money to cover basic costs, said Mark F. Fallon, vice president for real estate for Jeffrey R. Anderson Real Estate, a Cincinnati company that develops shopping centers and operates 15 restaurants, including 12 Hooters franchises.

Mr. Fallon said that zombie operators cut costs to the bone to stay in business.

“It has nothing to do with the quality of the food or serving the customer,” he said. “It’s just a financial play.” He said his company operated differently and located new restaurants in areas with healthy demand.

But in the eyes of some competitors, Anderson Real Estate may be contributing to the oversupply problem. The company is in the process of completing a new development in downtown Cincinnati called the Banks, which will include 300 apartments and, by the end of next year, up to 10 new restaurants, with a total of about 3,000 seats. They include chains like Johnny Rockets and Toby Keith’s I Love This Bar and Grill.

Harry E. Stephens, the co-owner of two Cincinnati restaurants, one a short drive from the new development, can hardly believe it. “There are restaurants downtown that are struggling now and you add all those seats,” he said. “They’re going to drain our market share for sure.”

While many restaurant chains have been able to scrape by through difficult economic times, independent restaurants like those run by Mr. Stephens have had a much harder time of it, with more of them closing than opening during the recession even as the number of chain restaurants has increased or held steady.