Late-night is emerging as a key battleground across the industry, with both quick-service and full-service brands vying for their share of the lucrative hours after dark.
In the aftermath of the pandemic, which made it nearly impossible to operate 24/7, restaurants gradually started extending their hours back to midnight or beyond, thanks to rising demand and an improving labor picture. By mid-to-late 2023, many chains were reporting recovery of the daypart. Others were starting to eye it as an untapped opportunity to drive sales and traffic.
The growing attention has mobilized brands that have long been known for burning the midnight oil to defend what they believe is their territory.
“We started staying open 24 hours in the late 1920s, so late-night has always been part of who we are,” says Jamie Richardson, vice president of marketing and public relations at White Castle, adding that it’s become “much more competitive” lately after the industry started moving beyond the post-COVID recovery phase.
In response, the chain put a plan in place last summer to nurture the daypart with investments in labor, technology, and marketing. A renewed focus on staffing levels helped White Castle keep more stores open later. The company also introduced additional support during late-night shifts, with district supervisors and general managers working alongside frontline employees to maintain a sharper focus on execution.
Richardson says recent tech upgrades, like voice AI in the drive-thru and robotic fryers, help with productivity around the clock and are “especially helpful when you look at late-night.”
On the marketing front, the chain last fall launched a new “Night Castle” marketing campaign that included tailored messages on social media, merchandise, and a partnership with rapper Fat Joe. It also started funneling more dollars toward channels that cater to late-night crowds, like on-screen ads in bars and QR codes on coasters.
“We tapped into a bar network that was able to geo-target by our castle locations, and we were able to see what competitors in our trade areas were doing really strong late-night business to know where we needed to be our very best,” Richardson says. “We concentrated on a castle-by-castle basis versus being generic, and that was really helpful for us to have it be our best-performing daypart versus the prior year.”
The company has focused on building deeper relationships with its delivery providers and actively embraced the delivery space to position itself as a go-to choice for consumers during evening hours. Richardson declined to share specifics about the delivery mix but emphasized that it plays a critical role in driving late-night business.
“The growth of delivery is huge when it comes to late night,” he says. “That area has shaped the landscape as much as anything else. There are more options available to more people who have even more convenience because they don’t necessarily have to be the hunter gatherers themselves. Especially when we look at Thursday, Friday, and Saturday evenings after 10 p.m., the screens are filling up with delivery orders in a really great way.”
Delivery has become the driving force behind Denny’s late-night business, too. Dylan Taylor-Smith, vice president of media and digital strategy, says the diner chain has long been known for staying open around the clock and was laser-focused on getting the majority of its restaurants back to 24-hour operations coming out of the pandemic.
Still, for a daytime-centric dining destination, there’s no getting around the fact that traffic is highest when the sun is still shining. That’s why the company has beefed up investments in virtual brands to diversify its menu offerings and increase its reach to dinner and late-night guests.
“Our restaurants are packed at breakfast,” Taylor-Smith says. “As that evolves throughout the day and over the different dayparts, we have this capacity and opportunity to lean into delivery with these other concepts, where we get to utilize space in our kitchen and the labor that we’ve got on staff. It’s kind of the perfect storm.”
Denny’s first got into the virtual brand game in 2021 with The Burger Den and The Meltdown, offering burgers and hot sandwiches stacked with creative toppings. There’s also the Cali-Mex-inspired Banda Burrito, which launched on the West Coast in late 2023 and started expanding nationally last year. Now, over 1,000 of Denny’s roughly 1,400 locations offer at least one virtual brand if not all three, thanks in large part to Banda Burrito’s recent growth push.
As the company expands the availability of virtual brands across the country, it’s leaning into its partnerships with third-party aggregators to promote the delivery-only brands and drive more business.
“The gift of Doordash and Uber Eats is that it’s a platform of people who are ready to transact,” Taylor-Smith says. “They’re ready to try something and ready to eat. So, we’re there with these three concepts, and the lever that you pull is really a promotion—free delivery or something of the sort—to try and get the food in the mouths of these guests.”
The virtual brands capture a different demographic than in-store menus, she adds, noting that there’s just a 1 percent overlap between guests that dine-in and those that order from delivery channels.
“The other thing we know with certainty is that it’s a millennial and Gen Z population,” Taylor-Smith says. “Our dining guests tend to skew a bit older, and they’ve been conditioned to using Denny’s as a mainstay for years. The younger generations might not. So, whenever I’m speaking to franchisees about the opportunity in the digital space, I’m like, ‘This is the way we sort of love on this new population and bring Denny’s to a younger crowd.’”
When it comes to menu development, the focus is on utilizing existing SKUs to create distinctive items that set the brands apart from Denny’s without introducing unnecessary complexity. Equally important is optimizing the menu with options that resonate with off-premises diners, ensuring they align with what guests crave during dinner and late-night hours, allowing Denny’s to spotlight these offerings in those key dayparts.
“In that late-night time period, a lot of people want something more indulgent, so we’ve certainly made sure we’ve got plenty of options for that,” Taylor-Smith says.
Jack in the Box is another brand that had mastered late-night for years before COVID threw its giant wrench in the mix. Amid the industry’s ongoing staffing recovery, the company started refocusing on that part of the business back in the summer of 2023 with its late-night “Snoop’s Munchie Meal” activation featuring Snoop Dogg. CEO Darrin Harris said at the time it was “the first big opportunity since COVID to replant our flag” in the all-important daypart.
Since then, Jack in the Box has been growing and defending its share of the segment by making sure it’s staffed appropriately at late-night and introducing a new way of scheduling labor to ensure it’s hitting its speed of service numbers.
The brand also has kept momentum going by generating buzz with limited-time offers and collaborating with high-profile celebrities. Last year, it brought back the fan-favorite Chicken Tater Melt from its original Munchie Meal lineup, reintroducing the item with the help of a partnership with Ice Cube.
“We’re always listening to our guests, using data and real-time feedback to understand their late-night preferences,” says Ryan Ostrom, executive vice president and chief marketing officer at Jack in the Box. “This helps us bring back fan-favorite items with a fresh twist or introduce entirely new offerings inspired by food trends that match the energy of late-night culture.”
The biggest lesson the brand has learned about succeeding in the increasingly competitive daypart is to understand what consumers want during late-night and meet them where they’re at, he adds.
“Late at night, indulgence is key, so we focus on bringing back fan-favorite items at just the right moments—like Monster Tacos during Halloween—to create excitement and give our guests something to look forward to,” Ostrom says. “We’ve also learned that consumer preferences are constantly evolving, and staying ahead of those trends is essential. For example, we’re seeing increased interest in more niche offerings that go beyond traditional QSR fare, such as boba, ramen, and ube flavors. This insight has inspired some of our recent limited-time offers, allowing us to deliver adventurous, bold, and unexpected menu experiences that resonate with late-night diners.”
