I live in a small town, until a few years ago, some places still followed Sunday Blue Laws. A local grocery store used to do 24/7, but I guess it wasn’t profitable. They are open 6-10 now.
The only thing around here open 24/7 is a Walgreens now that there are no longer any Walmarts in the area open all day. You can get gas at some stations if you use credit or debit, but not buy anything inside their stores past midnight or so.
But my parents said that there were a lot of things open 24/7 when they lived on the MA/RI border and were dating in 1974. Mom described them having dates after they got out of work at midnight and being able to go bowling, mini-golf, and out to eat.
Why is Israel surprising?
Early 70s and they were the Open Pantry chain --------- which I and several college friends at the time wanted to buy, remove the "r"s and re-theme.
Alcohol was involved.
The small city I grew up in (about 37 miles north of Milwaukee) had a 24 hour diner named, of course, “Round the Clock”. This was in the late 70’s and was the only business until the late 80’s to be open 24/7/365.
Everything else was practically bankers hours. The Sears, JCPenny, etc all closed at 5, 3 on the weekend except closed on Sunday. The larger grocery stores and the Shopko stayed open until 8pm.
How sucky that was.
In town, we had nothing open 24 hours but if you had a car you could find gas stations/convenience stores/truck stops open near the interstates. The first place in city limits that was open 24 hours was White Castle in the early 80s.
The surprise was that this was in Lexington, 2nd largest city in KY; lots of smaller towns had 24-hour Wal-Marts but back then Wal-Mart’s business model stuck with small towns where they could destroy all the small businesses and dominate the area.
About 12 years ago a 7-11 opened up about 15 miles from me. I’m pretty sure they are 24/7 (even if their name implies otherwise). About 10 more miles there is another one. Besides a hospital, I think that’s it for the entire county. Might be a few other convenience stores I’m unaware of.
It’s kinda interesting. We have 4 world class ski resorts in this county. Bars stay open to 2am I suppose on weekends. But that’s about it.
I grew up in rural Maryland in the sixties. The only business I am aware of that was open 24/7 back then was a pharmacy(when did we stop saying drug store?) in the big town about 15 miles away.
When the first 7-11 opened it was seen as folly by my family and neighbors. Why would a store be open until 11pm? Who could possibly need to buy something that late?
That seems hilarious now, but I just talked to my SO about this and he asked me when the last time was that either of us went to a store later than 5 or 6pm. It has been so long that neither of us could remember. 
We’ve always had Diners and coffee shops that were open 24 hours (or very close to that where they maybe closed at 2 am and opened again at 6 am) but I do remember when 7-11 wanted to move into the town, for some reason, many people were convinced it would be a problem and demanded the police patrol it and keep it under a close watch.
The first 24/7 business in my home town in New Jersey was a supermarket, which had been around since the late 1950s. They started being open all the time sometime in the late 1970s.
They’re still there, but these days they’re not open 24/7 any more.
Back in the 1980s most places I lived lacked 24/7 businesses. There was a diner with those hours in Rochester, NY, but when I visited friends elsewhere in the country, I was surprised how early things closed, even in large cities.
I was really astonished when I moved to Salt Lake City in the early 1980s. What I would have thought a fairly low-key, conservative town had a dozen 24/7 businesses within two blocks of where I lived, including a couple of gas stations, a Winchell’s Donuts, a supermarket, and a restaurant.
I don’t recall any as a kid. Maybe Taco Bell.
After that my first Wal-Mart, which I didn’t experience until well into adulthood.
The first place I was aware of being open 24/7 was AM/PM Market, probably in the late 70’s. They ran a commercial with Dracula shopping in the middle of the night and the song “Rock Around the Clock” but with the words “Shop Around the Clock”.
I was probably 9 or 10, but for some reason, this commercial stands out. I remember asking why people would need to shop at midnight and my dad mentioned shift workers.
Um, hasn’t happened yet.
I think the closest 24 hour place is 20 - 30 minutes away in another town. Even the gas stations all close at 10:00.
In my neck of the woods, as far back as at least the 1960’s there were at least a few 24x7x365 establishments in the big city (Atlanta) - one drug store, one diner (The majestic) and, of course, Waffle House. That would have been about a 45 minute drive back. I’m sure there were others that I didn’t know about, seeing as I was but a wee lad then…
To add a twist to the discussion, are you seeing more 24/7 locations opening or those that were 24/7 reducing their hours?
After 9/11 with the slump in the economy many stores saw a slowdown and reduced their hours. The one that surprised me that one of the Home Depot’s here went from 24/7 (which I thought was odd) to closing at 11pm and opening up at 5 or 6am. The only reason I found out was because it was on the way for my friend dropping me off back home and needed to buy something for a home repair project.
Recently I saw that a Korean restaurant that was famous for being open 24/7 has changed to closing at 1am, which is odd because they catered to after bar close crowd. Earlier this year, the supermarket down the block went from 24/7 to closing at 1am and opening at 5am.
I’ve seen a couple of places shorten their hours, but in both cases it was in response to criminal behavior rather than lack of demand. The local Kroger had some problems with junkies living in a nearby fleabag motel - when an employee was threatened with a knife, they started closing from midnight to 6 a.m.
The Starbucks on Clark and Belmont in Chicago was open 24 hours but had problems with both the homeless hogging tables and panhandling customers and prostitutes that were using the bathrooms to service clients; a few times I was there I overheard the police asking them to close because of all the calls coming from the place.
I grew up in Atlanta, a city known for its night life, so there was plenty open 24 hours in the 1970s/1980s - Waffle House, Huddle House, the Varsity, Krystal, some of the Shoney’s, pizza places, more. Don’t really remember when places like Walmart and Walgreens went 24 hours, probably in the 1990s.
Edit: just read Doctor’s post and glad to see it matches my memory.
I grew up Southern California in the early 1970s. At that time there was one 24 hour supermarket (Boy’s Market - long gone). I have a distinct memory of sitting in the parking lot frustrating my dad as I couldn’t quite grasp “Open 24 hours” meant the same thing as “never closes”. I knew there were 24 hours in a day, but mentally I couldn’t make the leap from “Open 24 hours”+24 hours in a day = always open. Finally my dad gritted out "Just pretend the sign says ‘open 24 hours a day’ ". Then it suddenly made sense.
Also 24-hour diners like Denny’s and Norm’s were around then.
I also remember one 24/7 bowling alley.
When I was a kid in Columbia, S.C., (70s-ish) Taylor Street Pharmacy was the only regular business I knew of that was open 24/7. By the time I moved away (1993), there were grocery stores and restaurants and so on, too.
Where I live now, I know of at least one defunct restaurant that I’ve heard many natives refer to as the only 24/7 place they knew of growing up. It’s now a parking lot for the community college.
As a kid in suburban Houston in the 1970s, I think there might have been a few all-night IHOP/Waffle House/coffee shop kind of places, and a few gas stations that were open all night. Otherwise everything seemed to have been open Mon-Sat, and a lot of places shut at 5-6 pm. Definitely no 24 hour Wal Marts or anything like that. For that matter, there were no Wal-Marts until about 1990-ish at all.
As I got older, the times got later. By the time I was in high school (1987-1991), there was a Tex Mex chain called Two Pesos (since assimilated by Taco Cabana) that was open 24 hours. That’s the first place I recall being open that late.
By the time I was in college, there were 24 hour Wal-Marts, and a handful of restaurants. That’s pretty much the way it still seems to be around here (Texas in general). I think there’s a 24 hour Walgreens somewhere on my side of town somewhere, and the Wal-Marts, gas stations, and a handful of restaurants (IHOP, Waffle House, Whataburger, a few McDonalds) are 24 hours.
Lots of stuff is open until 10-11 pm though- Target, Walgreens, etc…