I visit relatives in Germany frequently and I think in some places stores close at noon as well as all day Sunday. I was in a rural area so maybe it is different in bigger cities.
It does take some adjustment.
We used to have all stores close on Sunday in the US when I was little in the 1960s. I recall my parents making sure the car had gas and we had groceries before Sunday back then.
Yes, as I understand it the way @Cervaise described Luxembourg is the way it used to be in the US.
Heh, I live near Kittanning. The Walmart in Kittanning used to be open 24 hours. I don’t think they are anymore. The Sheetz in Ford City might be open 24/7.
The Giant Eagle near me in Apollo used to never close, but COVID did away with that convenience. I used to grocery shop at 3 am just for fun.
I, also, grew up with “blue laws”, and everything was closed on Sundays. I have a friend who says his (Orthodox Jewish) father participated in the legal fights to end the special treatment of Sundays, on the grounds that it made it very hard for religious Jews to run their errands without violating the Sabbath.
In some ways, i miss the blue laws. Sundays were peaceful.
Hi there neighbor!
I used to shop at the 24 hour Walmart in Kittanning and Giant Eagle in Apollo when they were open 24/7. I miss those days but I have adjusted accordingly. I also used to go out in the wee hours of the morning to shop especially when insomnia hit.
I believe that all Sheetz gas/convenience stores are open 24/7. I have never seen one closed.
Sheetz are the western PA Wawa stores similar to 7-11s just to clarify for those not familiar with the names.
In my southwest Chicago suburban location, we still have a Walmart open 24/7 and a Walgreens drug (though the pharmacy is not open 24/7).
I just looked and there’s three local Walmarts with two scaled back to evening closing hours but one remaining 24hrs. Same with the Walgreens; most have a close time but one remains 24hrs. I guess they figure that if you really need something at 2:45am, you’ll drive the extra couple of miles for the only option in town.
The local strip mall 7-Eleven is open 24/7. I didn’t check others.
I tried searching for 24hr open businesses near me on Google and got a tree service, real estate firm and data consulting business – someone(s) forgot to set their business hours on Google.
That’s crazy. I assume that if you went to a hospital pharmacy they would sell you what you need and that there is always someone there?
An interesting experience I had once was in Israel trying to find a grocery store open on Yom Kippur. Don’t know if there are explicit “blue laws” but one (Lutheran) shopkeeper told me she was afraid to open, and at least a couple of convenience stores had someone on the premises but refused to do business. You have to go to the right neighbourhood, but good luck getting there because there are no buses running.
If I go the local ER for a situation and require medications after hours they generally give me a few pills to last until the stores open. Or at least that is how it used to be in the past.
Well, sure, but I’d have to have been at the hospital to be seen by a doctor or NP. I’ve yet to see a hospital where they’d let someone in off the street who just wanted to go to the pharmacy and get a script filled, or buy a DIY CoVid test (which was the reason I was looking for a pharmacy at two a.m.).
In Bavaria, about an hour east of Nuremburg and two hours north of Munich. Stores have to be near a train station to legally be open late. My town’s train station is really tiny, though. There aren’t any stores at all near it. I don’t think it’s ever staffed, either. Tickets are available online, so the station is just kind of a designated place for the train to stop. There is nothing else there. It’s like a neighborhood bus stop. Also, I can’t mow my grass on Sunday, can’t employ bug spray without a permit to kill, and can’t use herbicides at all (cause of the bees). It’s wild. I’m close enough to Czech that if I really want to shop on a Sunday, or buy weed killer on the black market, I can do so.
Small town in southern Oregon, very rural, county seat, ~25K people.
A large grocery store (which actually has a good selection of non-grocery items)
Several convenience stores
A truck stop
A couple of gas stations
A couple of drive-through coffee stands
Jack in the Box
Arby’s
Edit: I thought Wal-Mart was open 24 hours but I just checked and Google says they’re open 0600-2300. They used to be open 24 hours but then Covid, etc. I never shop at Wal-Mart so I never noticed.
I don’t think there’s anything near me open 24/4, maybe a gas station or two. Closer to downtown there are some pharmacies, grocery stores, and plenty of restaurants open (Fairmount bagel and La Banquise for those late-night bagel and poutine cravings).
A laundromat that is 3.6 miles from me is open 24 hours.
There are approximately 15 convenience stores within approximately 10 miles from me, many of them part of a gas station.
I didn’t know Ford City had a Sheetz, but I haven’t been there in a while.
I forgot to mention that they are all open 24 hours.
Yes - I’ve known of 24 hour pharmacies as far back as the '80s. There are also locations of chains like CVS or Walgreens where the store is open 24 hours but the pharmacy closes earlier and there are metal gates around it. This is apparently the reason so many “drugstores” in NY say “Pharmacy dept within” , because if the whole store were registered as a pharmacy, the store would need a pharmacist on duty at all times.
There are also 24 hour bodegas and diners and fast food outlets and supermarkets and laundromats and gas stations - but pre-COVID there used to be more . And there was a 24 hour Home Depot. If you ask, the owner/manager will tell you is due to staff shortages - but I think the shortage might be specifically people who will work overnight.
It might be a Kittanning address, but it is closer to Ford City. You aren’t missing much. A friend used to have a bar in Ford City called Shake’s. But he and the bar are gone now.
The gas stations with convenience stores that are part of regional or national chains (Cumberland Farms, Irving, Mobil) are usually open 24 hours a day. Gas stations without convenience stores usually close, as do locally owned non-chain convenience stores.
The only restaurant I know of that is open 24 hours is one McDonalds location, which happens to be the closest one to my house. I have heard there is a 24-hour diner about 20 miles away but I don’t even know where it is exactly.
There is a 24 hour pharmacy about 10 miles away, with a pharmacist on duty most of the time except short meal breaks. The next nearest one is probably more than an hour away.
The Planet Fitness I go to is open 24 hours a day during the workweek, but with reduced hours on the weekends. There used to be some 24/7 PF locations in the area, but apparently they all scaled back their hours since the pandemic. There are a couple of non-chain 24/7 gyms around that are accessible by members but not staffed late at night.
Long ago we had supermarkets and WalMart locations that stayed open 24 hours but that hasn’t been the case since about the 1990s.
In my town, none - everything closes up by 10:00 in this little mountain town of 600 people. Go 30 miles west and you’re in a town of 5,000, which has some gas stations/liquor stores that I assume stay open 24/7, but I’ve never had a reason to try to find out. I imagine the town’s Walmart closes at 10 or maybe midnight. If you go 25 miles north from my town there’s a town of maybe 1500 people, but it’s a tourist town for much of the year and I think at least one of its three gas stations is open 24/7. Go another 15 miles north on the same road and there’s a town of about 3,000 that is also on the interstate, so there’s a cluster of gas stations, truck stops (with a restaurant), and drive-through places (Taco Bell and whatnot) and I assume the lion’s share are open 24/7.