Gas stations are very labor dependent, they work on extremely thin margins and very few independently owned gas stations survive unless they are massive operations where the gas is only the side thing in comparison to everything else they offer. I know guys who built corner shopping center gas stations with multiple units who have done very well, a small independent gas station they wouldn't waste their time. The thing with indians is that they are willing to work endlessly for the rest of their lives like it's a normal way to live. So these gas stations that most businessmen would look at and say "this isn't worth the decline in my quality of life" or it isn't worth the cost of labor many indians jump in head first. This is true for a lot of disposable businesses, I'm not sure if I would put a gas station into the disposable business category because you do actually own an asset beyond your inventory or equipment it's not like a restaurant or smoke shop something like that but it's the same concept as to why you see so many in them.
Hotels are a bit different, with the hotel the indian guy pretty much just lives there and they work all the hours but beyond that the Indian guys are willing to put up with the absolute dregs of society in their slum hotel. It's rare to find someone who owns just one hotel unless it's an indian, they own the hotel that the guy who owns multiple hotels doesn't want to waste his time on. My father and uncles owned a very nice resort style hotel near a lake a few hours from us. It was a great business and a very lovely hotel but it had a lot of moving parts and the issue was simply that we couldn't find an operating partner for it. The two brothers they had running it for almost a decade just didn't want to do it anymore and we didn't blame them, their entire lives was pretty much that hotel. We paid them more than the hotel made profit and even gave them a percentage but eventually they just wanted to move on, they had made enough money at that point where they didn't have to do it anymore. We tried for months to find another manager and it just didn't happen, we were willing to pay a silly amount in salary and give a percentage but just nobody popped up which could handle it because anyone competent knew that the hotel was pretty much going to be their entire life. If it wasn't 3 hours away I would have taken over and just oversaw employees but being 3 hours away you needed someone local or someone willing to make that drive 3-4 times a week which is asking a lot.
Well guess who bought it....an indian guy and his family, they live at the hotel now in this small midwestern slice of Americana lake town. I've checked on it every now and then, we had great reviews and it was the nicest hotel in town and now all the reviews are complaints about the condition and service, last I checked the complaints were about the how terrible the food at the bar and grille in the hotel had become, none of the arcades work anymore, the pool was closed and they don't do live music on the dock anymore. The indian guy stripped it to the bare bones, heaven forbid he spend a dollar more than he needs to for anything.
Thanks for typing all of that out, I always wondered why so many jeets like to buy gas stations and hotels. And yes, often times it is the actual owner behind the register working 100 hours a week.