Does it really pays better? I thought that cooks aspired to own/operate a restaurant because they think they'll be able to do the stuff they want the way they want.

If you love cooking, running a business would definitely take away time from that. It's also a different set of skills to run a business, especially High-Touch B2C as compared to only delivering food/product.

But cooking and running a restaurant demands completely different skillsets. Being the best cook doesn't always means they can build a successful restaurant business.

Unless you're unable to handle the business side - in that case, you lose a lot of money.