You’re a kid on Christmas morning, among your presents is that toy you’re been hinting about for months. Yes! What…batteries not included and all the stores are closed?! Ahhh…memories.
Growing up in the 60’s, by 9pm almost every store and restaurant was closed. In my neighborhood the only places open were a bakery, a small convenience store and a tiny drive-inn. Other than the bakery, everything closed by 1 or 2 am at the latest. I think the breakfast counter of the bakery may have been open 24/7, but the bakery closed about midnight, sooner if everything was sold.
I think there may have been a few 24/7 eating places by the University.
In the Bronx in the 1960s, there were a couple of all-night diners in the neighborhood, plus, farther away, White Castle. We would head over there when we closed the bars at 3 or 4 AM. No place to buy batteries, though, unless it was a gas station.
I’m 63, and when I was very little there was a drugstore near downtown that was always open. Unique for it’s day. It was also kind of a convenience store, so on holidays, when everything, including groceries, used to close, it would get some good business. It was probably at least twenty-five years before the next 24/7 place opened, it took a long time for that to happen much around here.
Somewhere around 1970 a couple of supermarkets experimented with staying open 24 hours a day. The reason they gave was because employees were in there anyway (stocking) and there were shift workers who wanted to shop in the middle of the night.
Before that, the only thing I can remember was an occasional diner. In St. Louis the Parkmoor and Uncle Bills Pancake House had most of the 3:00 a.m. business.
I remember the small town in northern Thailand where I lived as a Peace Corps Volunteer from 1988-90. They rolled up the sidewalks awfully early. Then an even smaller town in the same province didn’t even have electricity. Now there’s a 24-hour 7-Eleven in both places, the latter town having since been electrified. If those had been there back in the day, it would have diminished the roughing-it feeling.
Um, I’m pretty sure all the Dunkin Donuts have been closed, 24/7, for several years. Several Tim Hortons and McDonald’s restaurants, however, are open 24/7, and of course lots of dépanneurs (convenience stores) – with or without fuel pumps.
ETA: I stand corrected: there are 2 Dunkin Donuts locations in Montréal !
When I was much much younger “everyone” knew where all four of the 24/7 gas stations were within 25 miles. One truck stop in each larger population center. Two were vending machine food and two had restaurants. Now within 100 miles of here, almost everyone is within 10 miles of a 24/7 gas station plus most are within 20 miles of an open restaurant and to a grocer, pharmacy, or Walmart.
There were no 24/7 places in my home town. Bars had to close at 4 am and gas stations closed at 8 or 9. There still weren’t any when I moved upstate.
I don’t recall an 24/7 places there until the mid-70s, when a major supermarket chain started advertising it. They had a crew restocking all during the night, so all they had to do was bring in one person to work the register. Most supermarkets now work that way (though my local one closes at 11 on Sunday). You can also find a few 24-hour drugstores.
I had a memorable “first date” at the Parkmoor and WAY too many late night, after the bar closed, meals at Uncle Bills. Thanks for the memories. Uncle Bills still going strong…sadly, the Parkmoor not so much.
Curious about 24/7 gas stations back in the day. Did they have attendants that filled the gas (as was common for then) or did you have to go inside to pay? I remember gas stations having a manual credit card machine permanently attached to a stand that also had a drawer to hold the CC slips.
Other than possibly Las Vegas, are the any 24/7 bars? In Hawaii, most bars close at 2am, and a few close at 4am. I think bars can open at 6am. I’ve heard certain 4am bars are a popular place to pickup bar hostesses and ummm…exotic dancers since they’ll go there after their workplace closes at 2am.
The Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution went into effect almost 32 years before I was born, so I have no first-hand knowledge; even so, I suspect many bootleggers in formerly “wet” jurisdictions in North Alabama set up 24/7 operations about the same time. Of course, in the “dry” jurisdictions they’ve always been 24/7 operations!
In my home town I remember several diners, truck stops, and gas stations open around the clock in the mid-50s.
I’m guessing it was late seventies in my East Tennessee home town. I remember my best friend and I buying a couple of wrasslin’ magazines at a convenience store after our graduation party in 1982.
There was one diner that was open 24\7 circa mid 1960’s. It got moved when the Discovery Channel put a headquarters on that block. The last time I was around there it was still open.
Otherwise I don’t recall convenience type stores until much later.
Several Tim Hortons and McDonald’s restaurants, however, are open 24/7, and of course lots of dépanneurs (convenience stores) – with or without fuel pumps.