This weekend I saw a Subway at a strip mall. Why is that news? Its hours are…
24 hours a day.
How much demand can there be for fast food sandwiches at 3am? How often do you dine out (fast food counts) at the overnight hours say 1 to 6am? For that matter, how often do you go out to the 24 hour grocery store at those hours?
All the time.
I work second shift. I shop after midnight and sometimes pick up a sammich at 3am all the time.
They have a lot of 24 hour Subways in truck stops. It’s very nice to get something resembling real food when you stop for fuel instead of skittles and beef jerky or corn dogs and taquitos.
There are people on their way home from a night out who want a meal. And there are people on their way in to work for an early job who are picking up their lunch. The overlap between the two groups covers most of the night.
Who knows? In some cases a person might belong to both groups. Somebody might be leaving the bar at 4:00 am and have to be at work at 6:00 am.
Sometimes I will be working events that go to 1am or later and I just want to grab something quick to eat afterwards.
What’s the line about the big city? “The city never sleeps”.
Not lately, but when I was in grad school we’d go to IHOP at 1 am or 2 am quite frequently.
Last call. Then what?
Never. At midnight or shortly after I’m in bed reading, or with my laptop, and by 1a.m. I usually shut the world off and try to fall asleep.
Interesting. All of the Subways around me close relatively early, most by 1000pm, some as early as 900 (every day, not just Sunday).
Isn’t this Dennys’ whole business model?
I’ve never been in a Denny’s sober.
Most of the time, I work either 3:30 to midnight, or 11 PM until 7-8 in the morning. It’s nice to be able to grab a hot meal on my way home from either shift when I don’t feel like cooking.
Drunks, and if they deliver, stoners. The latter and the fact that they put the stores near colleges is the market that Jimmy John’s seems to be cornering (they usually close but at 3am or something).
I know not this thing you speak of. If there is business, they are open.
Add to this the fact that not all that many places are open at 3AM, so you aren’t splitting the market with that many people. I will say that at virtually every tournament or convention I’ve been to, there have been very late-night food runs. Usually McDonalds or Burger King, but that’s because Subway isn’t open all night around here. 
I like to start my day at 2 am, I wish everything was 24 hours.
Bars licensed by the state?
You’d think, wouldn’t you? When I moved to the city from the 'burbs, I had to get used to places closing at 9 or 10. Really weird. My suburb of origin had lots of places open until midnight or later. The city of Chicago, not so much, outside of nightclubs, bars and a few restaurants.
I’ve been here long enough that it no longer feels strange, but my first few years here were full of, “let’s just run to the store and…oh, right…not open late hours here…”
Nowadays, rarely, but back when I worked grad school hours or night shifts, it would have been nice to have one of those handy. I certainly did a lot of 3am shopping, and “pizza nights” were one of the positive features of working night shift on the weekends rather than during the week (we would do it in a Saturday night and take the boxes to the city trash on Sunday).