The 24-hour diner contains multitudes

March 22, 2025 4:38 PM

Depending on the time of day, it can be: a hub where decades-long regulars grab their morning coffee; a comfy spot for families to gather over an affordable, hearty meal; and a post-closing-time oasis where the young and buzzed find post-bar grub. In her short documentary Regulars, the US filmmaker Emma Kopkowski spends an entire 24-hour day at Jake’s Diner in Greensboro, North Carolina. There, she encounters a fascinating cast of employees and patrons, each of them with stories to tell and full lives viewers only ever catch a glimpse of. from The passage of time is a peculiar thing in a 24-hour diner [Aeon]
posted by chavenet (16 comments total)

also This American Life and the NYT have done 24-hour diner stories (i love me a 24-hour diner)
posted by kokaku at 5:46 PM on March 22 [8 favorites]

Beautiful.

Now I'm curious about what else Emma Kopkowski has done.

Thank you, chavenet. I wouldn't have seen this otherwise.
posted by kristi at 6:11 PM on March 22 [1 favorite]

Great post! Flagged as fantastic. Such a quintessentially American institution.

Obligatory sandwich scene from the classic masterpiece that is Diner.
posted by PareidoliaticBoy at 8:00 PM on March 22 [2 favorites]

You can spend an interesting week at a diner on a late night, but it's been a long time since I've done it.

Seems like things haven't changed much though, so that's nice.
posted by SaltySalticid at 8:44 PM on March 22 [3 favorites]

Spent more than a few 1-3am hours at Mickey's Diner in St. Paul back in the day. Definitely a very particular corner of the collective liminal space. It's the kind of thing that is easy to imagine as timeless, archetypal, such that in some far flung future, different planet, whatever, there's a long, narrow diner somewhere, with an incredibly surly woman of indeterminate age behind the counter, and hash browns and eggs that taste like salvation. It's a comforting thought. I hope it's true.
posted by Smedly, Butlerian jihadi at 10:25 PM on March 22 [7 favorites]

Back in the early 80s we were doing field-work across New England and the Canadian Maritimes. Researchers gotta eat, so I downed A Lot of pancakes in diners across the region. But researchers gotta research and we started to prefer dinering in Worcester Lunch Cars with their distinctive barrel roofs and marble counters. It turns out that, in the factory, all the parts (the ice-box doors, the window sashes) were stamped with a works number. On slow afternoons when it was too wet to be out working, the gaffer would play his party trick: open a random cupboard door and share !shazzam! the works number to the owner. Eventually he bought half of The Midway Diner [#666], then derelict in Shrewsbury MA, and spent the next ten years restoring it up on blocks in Watertown. #666 was last seen in Salisbury MA in 2014. Sic transit gloria meatloaf.
posted by BobTheScientist at 2:35 AM on March 23 [8 favorites]

This thread needs some Martin Sexton.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 5:03 AM on March 23 [2 favorites]

glad to see there still are 24 hour diners. all the ones i used to go to have started closing as early as 10 or 11 since covid. i guess it’s gotten hard to staff those late shifts, or not enough patrons. when you’re young, the diner is like an oasis in the desert of the night. it promises calm and refreshment after a long exhausting night of partying. pancakes at 3am, a balm to the soul
posted by dis_integration at 6:54 AM on March 23 [7 favorites]

what a cool project.

having grown up in New Jersey I know from diners. we always went to the diner after school dances in high school. 24 hours, no age restrictions. a safe place to hangout and feel like you are so cool, no parents etc., and they all served breakfast 24 hours a day, so if you head to the diner after work you can get an omelet and french fries and place video games in the foyer with your co-workers.
posted by supermedusa at 9:39 AM on March 23 [4 favorites]

My first job I got out of college was at a 24 hours night shift at Embers, in some suburb NW of Minneapolis. We did not have a "diner" vibe. More of a Denny's vibe.

But it was just me, taking orders, busing tables, accepting payments at the register.
Can't remember if I had to load the dishwashers as well.

But I never had more than two or three tables. So that was doable.
What I did have was the cook. Who when I was off serving, busing, etc., was going to the register, and stealing cash. I can't prove it, but I know I know how to count, and heard the register opening on occasion.

Needless to say as the cook had been there longer than I had, I got fired...
posted by Windopaene at 9:47 AM on March 23 [1 favorite]

the local 24 hour diner here is owned by a strong MAGA supporter, so I haven't been there in years. I do miss it.
posted by jkosmicki at 10:52 AM on March 23 [1 favorite]

This American Life did a similar episode. (Oops, I see someone got there first.)
posted by anshuman at 3:19 PM on March 23

Post-covid, there is a grand total of one 24-hour diner around here. Getting there requires a ride on the highway. And it sucks. Not in the good way.
posted by mikelieman at 4:07 PM on March 23

Same here in NYC. Post-Covid a lot of places have much shorter hours. The City That Never Sleeps is more like the The City That Sleeps At A Reasonable Hour these days.
posted by star gentle uterus at 7:42 AM on March 24 [2 favorites]

Not to mention the number of 24-hour diners in NYC that have disappeared since 2010 (both pre-Covid and because of Covid)
posted by kokaku at 10:31 AM on March 24

Intrigued, I looked into this place. They have five branches in Greensboro; according to their web-site, none currently open 24 hours. Given no masks in sight I have a suspicion the filming all took place before the virus.
posted by Rash at 7:16 PM on March 24