Speak to the owners… that’s exactly what happened.

They weren’t making much, most of their profit comes from the lunch/dinner rush. The rest of the evening is run at a loss. This truthfully started before the pandemic. The pandemic just made everyone do the math.

Then you have employees who don’t want to work those late hours since it’s minimum wage at best. Slow business = few or no tips. Per hour working those times is a pay cut. With the current labor shortage there’s no reason for someone to want to work those hours. Work someplace else, get earlier hours and more money.

People forget: restaurant employees who are tipped make more money when it’s busy. Less when it’s not.

Nobody is taking those hours until restaurants have too many employees for their peak times. Which is far from reality.

And honestly: good for them. Working overnight for minimum wage is awful.