You think restaurants take worker’s labor into consideration when making profitability choices? Look what servers are paid, they clearly don’t value their labor.

EDIT: I was being dramatic to prove a point. Restaurants run skeleton crews all the time to push profitability. Obviously they give it some consideration, but it’s rarely for the workers well being.

It’s about money. People are okay paying way higher margins for alcoholic drinks. They want you drinking alcohol for profits and the inebriating effect makes you more likely to spend loosely.