Well, it's a catch 22. Now that restaurants close early, no one wants to go out at night. Since no one is out and about late night, restaurants close early.

I have no problem understanding the economics behind their decisions—it makes sense—but that doesn't contradict what I said. It's just a shame that most would rather cut their losses and stay closed than take advantage of any late night demand or even encourage it. People won't go looking for food if there aren't any options.

It was sustainable pre-pandemic because a lot of infrastructure and services revolved around workers traveling into the office. If I stayed past 8pm at work, my job paid for my dinner and paid for a cab ride home. Obviously that wasn't them being generous. It was encouraging late hours onsite in the office.

Now I still may have to work way past 8pm - but I do so in my pajamas and raid my own fridge and I don't have to commute once I'm done - I shuffle over to my bed and fall asleep. The result of that though is a lot of places that might stay open late and employ delivery people in Manhattan, no longer do so if they're even still in business.