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I think it's mostly a culture change. My parents, like to reminisce about hanging out at the local Denny's with their friends in the middle of the night. I have never even thought about doing that, despite going to the same college with the same Denny's. It just never came up, I did other things instead. Maybe an arbitrary change, or phone and internet related. Not only did they not have cell phones, they might not have even had an individual landline, I wouldn't be surprised if the phone was for the whole floor.
Before cellphones, you used to have specific gathering spots to hang out and meet up with people, where you'd shoot the shit while waiting for a critical mass of people to show up and decide to go do something else. A lot of times you'd never really get around to figuring out what to do, so you'd just hang out until someone made you leave for not buying anything. For me in high school, this was usually a local Dennys or mall food court. Now that smart phones are ubiquitous, these types of gathering points are no longer a necessary part of organizing a night out.
The decline of the classic American diner long predates this though, and begins with the interstate highway system and development of drive-thru fast food restaurants. Long distance travel used to involve driving down a lot of local streets and stopping at little diners for food/to stretch your legs. But the interstates streamlined a lot of that travel, and the ability to grab McDonald's at any freeway exit without having to get out of your car outcompeted the diners on both convenience and cost. And then COVID shut downs dealt the final blow to most of those who managed to survive.
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