24/7 Diners

Submitted by HarpPgh t3_1268qxu in pittsburgh

I understand Covid ended a lot of these, but are there any 24/7 Diners left in Western Pennsylvania?

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Key_Ear_1571 t1_je85y5y wrote

I thought they stopped being 24/7 awhile back. Did they start again ?

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penguinsfan40 t1_je87d2j wrote

Not a diner but Sheetz might be one of the only options for 24/7 anymore

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tim0767 t1_je87fgs wrote

Not even Denny's is open 24 hours. Eat n Park?

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sparksofthetempest t1_je88qp0 wrote

Used to be you could jump on the Turnpike and get food all night at the rest areas. Now even that’s gone. Starbucks couldn’t even get enough staff to remain open at at least two locations during regular hours (I travel statewide all the time) and closed. The ones that are open sometimes often have only one employee and they close early.

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Pgh-matt t1_je88taf wrote

There is nothing anymore. I believe the closest is the wafflehouse in washington pa. Next closest are in ohio and wv to my knowledge

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Parsley_Just t1_je89syl wrote

Only one I know of is Dean’s Diner, I think, on 22 down Blairsville? Unless I’m misremembering

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oldschoolskater t1_je8dzwh wrote

Tom's Diner in Dormont, if a time machine could take us back to 2016.

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JAK3CAL t1_je8efj9 wrote

Replying to sparksofthetempest (#2,471,738)

used to always stop at a big overpass rest stop in Angola, NY traveling between WNY and the burgh. So I’m in like my fourth trip back and forth this month and it’s like 2AM I’m exhausted and I decide to stop bc it’s been quite a few years and I was gonna grab a milkshake or something. Walk in… complete ghost town. No business at all it looked like

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sparksofthetempest t1_je8g65n wrote

Replying to JAK3CAL (#2,473,020)

Yeah, as an older guy I guess I took this stuff for granted but it really made life better for lots of reasons. We’re really in dark times when one of the most heavily traveled thoroughfares in the country can’t pay enough to keep staff. It’s crazy.

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HarpPgh OP t1_je8gub7 wrote

Replying to oldschoolskater (#2,472,928)

Man.. my parents used to take us to the south side Tom’s diner with the buffet pretty close to 10-11pm sometimes after grade school basketball games. You’d definitely see some sights. It totally makes sense why that’s not around anymore with the way the Southside has shaped up. But the total demise of Tom’s/Folino’s/Penny’s is a shame. Such a Pittsburgh staple gone away

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TStrait21 t1_je8ircc wrote

Pretty sure there's still a 24/7 Denny's across the river from Oakmont (not sure what to call that area).

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humpthedog t1_je8so0f wrote

I’m not sure if it’s 24 hours but the Dennys on 48 in north Versailles is open until at least 2am.

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OneDwarfTwoSocks t1_je8yo06 wrote

Can someone open one? I promise I'll go, please I'm tired of Sheetz!

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newcitynewme724 t1_je9crpm wrote

Just another reason Pittsburgh is just not a real city. Nothing 24/7 short of 7/11 or Sheetz

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zelectricity t1_je9fprg wrote

Not 24 hrs but Nadine’s is open late (1:45 AM).

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TSOD t1_je9g9a5 wrote

Replying to JAK3CAL (#2,473,020)

That rest stop has always been great until Covid, since then I’ve never seen all the stores open at once. It’s a shame, it’s the only one before a long stretch of no rest stops so I try to stop there every time.

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nintante t1_je9ixsa wrote

There's an IHOP just before homestead on the Northside of it next to Hokkaido

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pittpajamas t1_je9mu7j wrote

Replying to newcitynewme724 (#2,479,695)

My parents live in the Philadelphia area and are hard pressed to find anything that is open past midnight when they go out with friends. They have reverted to eating before the movie/show/etc. It is not just Pittsburgh.

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pittpajamas t1_je9nbw1 wrote

If I were the casino, and wanted some late night foot traffic (read potential gamblers), I would make some of the eateries in there 24/7. I mean the casino is open 24/7 anyway.

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lifes_nether_regions t1_je9ng7a wrote

Man, I miss the old Eat-n-Park midnight buffet back in the early 90s. We'd show up at 1:00AM and eat like kings. Then hate ourselves the next day. But man, it was so good at the moment

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SparkNoJoyThrw01 t1_je9nnnm wrote

Replying to htwhooh (#2,481,697)

Waffle house is the only restaurant around here that returned to normal operating hours after COVID sadly

It's also not the worst drive ever, 376 to 79 and out to Washington

I really just feel bad for the kids these days man, 1am and every Sheetz parking lot is full, not because Sheetz is just "the place to be", but because there's nowhere else to go that late.

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GarrettRettig t1_je9sd86 wrote

Diners>sheetz and Getgo but that’s what ya got mostly

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drewbaccaAWD t1_je9vfld wrote

Replying to HarpPgh (#2,473,549)

> with the way the Southside has shaped up.

If anything, it's better now than it's been in the past. There's all that development on the eastern end of Carson and a lot of the get embarrassingly drunk crowd has moved to different neighborhoods.

I miss the old chaotic south side though, if anything, it's just not as full of life as it used to be. Entire area used to be one big party but honestly, I felt more at risk back then with so many drunks stumbling onto the road. Now it seems frighteningly calm almost any time I go down there.

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The_Wkwied t1_jea0dqn wrote

Replying to sparksofthetempest (#2,473,411)

> can’t pay enough to keep staff

Would YOU want to work minimum wage graveyard shift? It's not that they can't pay enough, it is that people are up and tired of working their lives away for pennies to the tens of thousands of dollars their CEOs make.

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ButtlickTheGreat t1_jea1kcg wrote

Replying to The_Wkwied (#2,485,681)

Look, I understand what you're saying here, but there are absolutely people who would be willing to work a night shift at a restaurant. Some people's lives just don't really accommodate working during the day for any number of reasons.

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69FunnyNumberGuy420 t1_jea6l1p wrote

Replying to ButtlickTheGreat (#2,486,010)

> there are absolutely people who would be willing to work a night shift at a restaurant

 
I'd say that there aren't, since none of these places can find any.
 
Restaurant work fucking sucks and there's an ongoing mass death event that killed over 260K people last year, which spreads explosively in restaurants. There are reasons these places can't find labor.

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rodomallard t1_jeahegp wrote

Why can places in Washington, Blairsville, and Belle Vernon staff places 24/7 but nowhere even close to the city can

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ButtlickTheGreat t1_jean1z5 wrote

Replying to 69FunnyNumberGuy420 (#2,487,392)

Look man, any way you slice it, we're at the endemic phase of the pandemic. There are countless people braving the restaurant scene every day; what we have in the way of harm reduction is what we're going to get. You don't have to tell me about the pandemic, I did everything I was supposed to do and advocated for others to do the same. I respect the severity of it, I get it.

I would argue that employers aren't looking for these employees. I haven't seen "Help wanted: Night Shift" signs up at restaurants/diners. They're not trying to be open, that's why they're not open.

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Hokiecivil t1_jeap6bf wrote

Anyone know if the Blue Flame in Clairton(?) is still open/any good?

I no longer live in the area but recall eating breakfast there at 0 dark thirty when I would occasionally go with my Dad to his jobsite at the Allegheny Mountain Tunnel project on the PA Turnpike in the mid '60's.

Great memories!

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69FunnyNumberGuy420 t1_jeapm6s wrote

Replying to ButtlickTheGreat (#2,491,658)

> we're at the endemic phase of the pandemic.

 
You don't know what that word means and you're misusing it.

 
Covid is the leading cause of death in America that isn't heart disease or cancer and it's going to continue to be that for the foreseeable future. Restaurants are incredibly good at spreading Covid.

 
> what we have in the way of harm reduction is what we're going to get.

 
And if people decided their version of harm reduction was getting out of a risky profession that paid like shit, good on them.
 
Every restaurant in this city that's closed recently has cited staffing concerns as a major contributor. People don't want to risk their lives for shit wages. I know people who used the pandemic to get out of the hospitality industry entirely and I doubt they're the only ones.

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adamcp90 t1_jeayck1 wrote

Replying to 69FunnyNumberGuy420 (#2,487,270)

You're missing the point. If you want to get a bite to eat and the only place open is the casino, you will consider going there when otherwise you wouldn't have set foot on their property. It's about attracting potential customers, not about selling food.

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adamcp90 t1_jeazzp1 wrote

Replying to 69FunnyNumberGuy420 (#2,494,545)

Do you speak for the entire population of Allegheny county? Maybe you wouldn't, but other random person who is up at 1:00am and looking for a bite to eat might consider it if it's the only option within a 30 minute drive.

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ButtlickTheGreat t1_jeb01nx wrote

Replying to 69FunnyNumberGuy420 (#2,492,240)

You have an extremely abrasive way of talking to people. Anyone ever tell you that?

Endemic means that a disease has a constant presence with a population; I am very aware of its meaning and used the word to describe what I intended to say accurately.

>People don't want to risk their lives for shit wages. I know people who used the pandemic to get out of the hospitality industry entirely and I doubt they're the only ones.

I also know people like that, and good for them. I also know people who turned 17, 18, and 19 during the pandemic. They are qualified to do exactly nothing and their parents aren't going to pay for them to be unemployed into perpetuity. Fuck the capitalist overlords (seriously) and everything, but these same people have to start working to start their lives and, again, are qualified to do nothing other than basic service industry jobs.

I don't know why you're so hostile to the idea, but COVID did not permanently kill late-night dining. This shit will work itself out eventually. There is demand, there will be supply. I too hate capitalism, but that's what we've got and its basic precepts will, as always, apply.

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69FunnyNumberGuy420 t1_jeb0yev wrote

Replying to ButtlickTheGreat (#2,494,751)

> Endemic means that a disease has a constant presence with a population;

 
That's not what it means.
 
It means that a disease is present at a low level in a population, i.e. R0 =< 1. Once an endemic disease starts spreading in an uncontrolled fashion, it becomes an epidemic or a pandemic.
&nbsp;

AIDS is still considered an epidemic disease, for instance. Rabies is considered endemic to certain animals in North America because it's there, it just doesn't spread out of control all the time.

&nbsp;
Covid is too contagious to ever be endemic. At best we'll get measles-like oscillating waves of infection. It's going to kill 250K+ Americans per year in perpetuity and there are plenty of people living their lives with that bit of risk calculus in mind.

&nbsp;
> these same people have to start working to start their lives and, again, are qualified to do nothing other than basic service industry jobs.

&nbsp;
This is a bizarre way of looking at the workforce when over half of all young people go to college.
&nbsp;
No one owes the restaurant industry, or the restaurant patron, their labor. Nobody. If restaurants close because they can't make money paying their workers what they want to make, fuck 'em. There's a labor shortage, and that's life.
&nbsp;
A lot of the people who asked for better restaurant wages pre-pandemic and were told "GO GET A BETTER JOB IF YOU DON'T LIKE IT!" did exactly that - they went and got better jobs.
&nbsp;

> I don't know why you're so hostile to the idea, but COVID did not permanently kill late-night dining.

&nbsp;
Of course it didn't. It certainly did negatively impact it in a great way, though. Just like it impacted everything else. And it's going to keep impacting it for a long time.

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pittpajamas t1_jebcs5e wrote

Replying to half_monkeyboy (#2,495,162)

Last call 1:30 (Rivers choice, not mandated before 2AM). All drinks off floor by 2AM or 2:15AM(I don't remember). Security starts walking around telling you to finish it or toss it. I believe they start back up at 7AM.

The casino can buy a license to serve 24/7. I don't believe any casino in the state has done so. Reference: https://www.abc27.com/news/the-states-casinos-snub-new-law-allowing-24-7-alcohol-sales/

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ChaingaPaste t1_jedpsji wrote

IHOP is open from 7am Fridays till 10pm Sunday. It isn’t much but they stay open the entire weekend

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trevorbenyack t1_jeeok2v wrote

Replying to pittpajamas (#2,482,157)

I used to work at the casino in Food & Beverage. They don't want to draw a drunk, rowdy crowd (hence not going the 24/7 liquor license). But more than that, they run F&B almost as a separate business and adjust restaurant hours to maintain profitability. I personally didn't agree with closing many of the venues as early as they did/do, but it's just the business model they use.

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Mobius_164 t1_jegg9px wrote

Not many. The places that aren’t also gas stations are slowly dwindling. There used to be one over here near dormont, but that closed a few years ago.

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