I have found that the success of things like this depend greatly on so many factors such as office type, location, team moral, management style, individual personalities, even mean age etc.

I have worked in places where the exact opposite of what you describe happens. As OP says, people just stop working at 6 and just start reading reddit or scrolling their phones. No team bonding and chat because everyone is wiped out from a hard day. Just people hanging around, grabbing their food when it arrives, and leaving.

We too had more than half the team staying for the “free” food, but they definitely didnt do much work whilst they were there.