My All-Nighter in a Vanishing World: the 24-Hour Diner
January 22, 2025 at 01:42AMAll-night diners, once a quintessential New York cultural institution, have seen hard times in the wake of the pandemic, the food-delivery boom, and ever-rising costs. For The New York Times, reporter Priya Krishna plays fly-on-the-wall for 12 hours at Kellogg’s in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, bearing witness to a diverse set of patrons. Early on, tame dinner patrons and night-cap lovers gave way to rowdy post-club revellers. As the music and the menu evolved as the hours passed and dawn arrived, she watched weary night workers at shift’s end make way for bleary early risers starting their days.
You never know who you might meet in the wee, small hours of an all-night diner.
Here’s a Navy man celebrating his last night in New York City with friends before being deployed. Over there is a tipsy rock singer executing a perfect run-through of Michael Jackson’s dance moves to “Thriller.” And in comes a 60-year-old intensive-care-unit nurse and her wife, sitting down to a romantic dinner after a long night of clubbing.
More picks about restaurants
Inside Superiority Burger
“How did chef and former punk drummer Brooks Headley turn his all-vegetarian vision for a rock and roll diner into the season’s hottest new restaurant?”
San Francisco’s 24-Hour Diner Stops the Cosmic Clock
“. . .but then there it is: a strikingly red building, a flash of weathered neon, an improbable promise issued since 1970. We Never Close.”
Getting Lost in the World’s Largest Stack of Menus
“Menus provide a window into history, a vital connection to our foodways.”
from Longreads https://longreads.com/2025/01/21/my-all-nighter-in-a-vanishing-world-the-24-hour-diner/
via IFTTT
Watch