I walked over to one of the two local kosher restaurants, Vegetable Garden, and it was shuttered, with a sign in the window saying they had "lost their lease."

I was not amused.

Welcome to capitalism. Although that could just be an excude, usually it isn't. If landlord can instead rent it out to Emperors' Club for 10% more, why keep the old stinky tenant ?

Is this the one in Midtown?

Yeah, the one on 41st between Park & Madison.
http://www.veggarden.com/index.html

Their sign says they are merging with a bagel store on 38th between 7th and 8th, as though that helps me.

but that means he just didn't renew their lease, not that he broke it in the middle, right?

I really liked Vegetable Garden - their eggplant pizza's so good! I guess they're merging with Bagel's Plus, or whatever it's called. I like that place as well, they have good soups.

My office always orders pizza from V.Garden, I wonder what they'll do now?? J2 is not nearly as good.

Often leases are year to year, or two years.

So did you help them try to find it? Maybe it's stuffed into a stack of papers somewhere.

And just as often they are for multiple years, with optional renewal terms to boot. Apartments are usually 1-2 years. Commercial (especially retail) leases often go for five years.

residential - for sure, don't know about business, but that's not the point. if the sign says that the business lost its lease, it means it wasn't (won't be) renewed? or that they broke it in the middle of the whatever term?

usually it means it ended and is not being renewed. The person who leased it probably raised the rent, and they didn't want to pay for it.

thanks.

(see, you are not as naive as you thought you were just kidding)