Restaurant open while not at the lot

This is a neat thing that's available in Dine Out - being able to open your restaurant even if your sim (the owner) isn't there. I've played around a little bit with managing the restaurant and having my sim be there the entire time it's open. The thing is when I open it without being there it doesn't make a profit, as in, it says there are no customers and I'm not getting paid. When I click to go to the restaurant that changes, it's packed with sims and is doing well.

Is anyone else experiencing this?