Similar here, in a fairly busy area of suburban Chicago. I don’t know if it was a side effect of COVID’s effect on retail, or what, but the vast majority of grocery stores (even the “supercenters”) and drug stores in this area close by 10pm.
The exceptions:
One of my local supermarkets (a Jewel) is open until midnight.
The two nearest Walmarts are open until 11pm.
There are two 24-hour Walgreens within a 10-minute drive for me.
There’s one CVS, about a 20-minute drive away, which is open 24 hours.
If they all disappeared tomorrow, it wouldn’t even make a blip on my consciousness. When I drive by them, if I notice them at all, they’re a blight on the landscape.
Are you talking about places like 7-11 or drugstores like CVS? If drugstores disappeared where are people supposed to get prescriptions? Drugstores are super useful.
But anymore most OTC and prescription medicines can be procured at WalMart and places like Kroger grocery stores. I can even get flu and other shots at those places. If our local Walgreens closed their doors tomorrow, it would not matter to me at all.
That’s the sort of thing that really depends on location. I basically never go to 7-11 or any other chain convenience store unless I’m traveling. There’s no reason to - to get to the closest 7-11 I would pass at least two supermarkets, four drugstores and an uncountable number of delis/bodegas, all of which sell the same sort of items I might buy in a 7-11 ( except the delis/bodegas sell made to order sandwiches rather than pre-packaged)
What I’m trying to say is that’s why some people sort of consider drugstores to be convenience stores - because in areas where there are few actual convenience stores , drugstores are one of the substitutes.
Oh. I was thinking the opposite. If they have a drugstore, they don’t really need convenience stores, unless there’s no other 24 hr place for emergencies.
I also wouldn’t buy any groceries at one, either. They always seem to have items at or over the expiration dates (they don’t seem to clean out old stock that well), and they’re way more expensive than most grocery stores.
While I have bought gas at places on rare occasions that are also convenience stores, I have not otherwise patronized a convenience store in a long, long, long time. (The places I gas up have just a small booth for smokes, lottery tickets, etc.) I can’t conceive of what I could possibly want to buy at such a place that I couldn’t get somewhere else that is more trustworthy, cheaper and at least as convenient.
Come to think of it, I am not sure where there is such a store anywhere in the region I currently live.
Y’all live in golden lands of 24hr stores, drug stores on every corner.
Well lighted, conveniently located grocery stores.
I live in a little town with nothing. A food desert. Not even a working ATM.
We have to drive to get everything. But Walmart isn’t even open 24hrs.in that town. No grocery store open.
There is a sketchy truck stop open 24 hrs. It ain’t no Buccee’s.
A 2am milk/beer or newspaper run is not possible.
No deliveries.
Same with me; I may stop at a gas station/convenience store to buy gas. But if they have pay-at-the-pump, I’ll often not even enter the convenience store part.
But the 24-hour stores are only relevant if you need stuff late at night. For me, it’s very rare that I’m not at home, or even in bed, between, say, 9pm-7am.
The only thing I can think of that I might have to buy at 2am is some OTC drugs for an unusual illness. Something that only a fully stocked drug store would have. (And none of the drug stores near me are open long hours. So this is a somewhat pointless thought exercise.)
I have adequate supplies of what a Quickie Mart might carry in this milieu. I don’t think I’m going to have an urgent need to buy a few packets of Goody’s powder.
Everyone I know who was a new parent was very familiar with which drugstores were open overnight, because there was often some emergency involving the baby that required a late-night run.