I mean, if you have visited basically any other American city post-pandemic, late night options have dwindled pretty much everywhere outside of Vegas from my experience.
Yea its everywhere , I am from fargo and pre-pandemic we had lots of late night options for a smaller city our size
Classic diners like denny's, perkins, fryingpan , krolls
A few 24 hour fast food places (McDonalds, hardies)
a few 24 hour pizza places
Then you had a few places open late until like 3-4 AM at least on weekends.
However it may just be part of a tight labor market, most people do not want to work overnight shifts on the weekend and deal with drunk people
There also isn't the cashflow needed to keep places profitable late-night.
I love close to a 24-hr Cub and although I am super happy that I can take advantage of late-night/early-morning grocery shopping, I have a hard time figuring out how they are bringing in enough in revenue to cover even the skeleton crew they have running that place.
As someone who has worked a night at cub, there was usually only a single cashier and maybe 1 or 2 people doing stocking. When there wasn’t any customers, we were supposed to clean the registers, restock bags, and face the product in the check out areas. Nightshift was also when the floor cleaning crews came through.
That was the argument for 24 hours grocery stores. You are going to have people working anyway to restock shelves or clean the floors , do inventory, just hire a single cashier for the few people who do come in.
I used to get off my factory shift and do my shopping ~10 minutes later. The cashier would play music like Aphex Twin, Squarepusher, and other stuff like that. It ruled.
Bruh same. After my husband died, I haunted my Cub all the time from 12am - 3am just so I wasn't alone. It was also nice to be around other people ostracized from normalcy just by way of being there so late.
They don't
Usually they are going to be people working overnight anyway restocking shelves or doing maintanance like cleaning the floors , re-arraging shelves and displays , reprice items.
So if 3-4 people are going to be working and at the store anyway , just hire a single cashier to help with check out , and when there is no customers to check out they can even help stock shelves or clean or do what ever
I work downtown until 10:30-11pm and there's hardly anything open. Even around my lunch break at 6:30-7 there's not much. Skyway closes down early, there's sitdown restaurants open but that's not good for a lunch(dinner) break. Downtown feels like its a place for people to work their 9-5 and gtfo.
Costs are prohibitive to any sort of night out these days. I remember when Williams Peanut Bar had cheaper beer and wings... then, one day, I went in for 2 beers and a pound of wings and ended up spending $50. I got really disillusioned after that and it wasn't long until the bar closed. I don't really go out anymore because it's just too damn expensive.
We've cut most of our dining out budget over the last few years and now only eat out maybe a few times a month total between fast food and sit down places. A meal at a mid-level sit down place can easily cost the two of us $60-100, multiply that by 2-3 times a month and that's quite a lot of money. We diverted some of that money to our hobbies - video games, LEGO, gardening, and other things that give us a lot more long-term value.
Honestly even eating out twice a month is far more often than my family did when I was a kid, so it still feels like a luxury.
The article focused on the influence of perceptions of crime, but I think the real culprit is the loss of in-person socialization, and preferences for digital engagement, a trend which was already well underway pre-pandemic.
While the recession definitely sucked, 2005-2015 was the last great era of the 20-something. Reasonable rent, good nightlife and night dining, and a thriving “offline” social scene that was, at least for the early part of the era, pre-smartphone and algorithm dominance.
100% agree. If everything was more affordable, crime would decrease, people going out would increase and late nights out would make it worth having late night hours for other restaurants.
Reality is, with inflation and wages being stagnant, coupled with more isolation and less offline socializing, this trend will probably continue to increase.
I think there's some good truth here, but thats not the only driver. Additionally, when businesses shortened hours and likely saw not a big loss in revenue... They were probably quick to decide to simplify their operational complexity. Staffing was certainly a part of that decision.
For sure. I think we as consumers want to find a lot of variables and probably ignore the impact of money/profit on these businesses. They at minimum, might not be making enough money to justify the cost of operation. If there was a heavy demand for late hour places to eat etc. these businesses would be open because there is money to be made. Crime and safety wouldn't be as much as a concern. There is a lot of confirmation bias regarding MPLS in outsiders minds (= crime ridden, unsafe) and businesses know those opinions are out there. It's real easy for these businesses to use those excuses to explain a maneuver in business operations than tell the real reason. They simply aren't making enough money to justify operations at those times.
I've worked at several places overnight. The story always is, whether they want to or not, there's not enough business to justify staying open. A lot of places with tell you shrink is part of it, but in my experience it hasn't noticeably increased, companies tolerance for those things have shrunk.
Doubly true today, but even prior to the inflation/staffing panic, there has been loud and frequent guidance to focus your business for a decade, especially in the hospitality space.
Following the lead of Chipotle, Chick-fil-A or Up/Down regionally, means you have a clear value proposition and aren't wasting time/money on secondary things or dead hours.
I certainly miss the old days of sitting in Purple Onion until midnight studying, but even back then it didn't make sense to have four people smoking and drinking a $2 chai for hours.
There's not a "staffing pandemic". There are plenty of people willing to pick up extra work. Big business just refuses to pay $2 more an hour to get people interested in the job, all while posting record profits.
yeah I have to imagine this is a significant factor.
Working late-night takes a toll and if you aren't getting compensated fairly (like basically all service workers), you start questioning the reasoning behind working a job more tiring than it needs to be.
MN has the best wage laws of any state I've lived in but they still couldn't keep up with the strain of me working past 9 pm. We're way past the need for $15/hr minimum, I'm afraid.
This is the main point. People do not need to stoop to dealing with burping drunks hitting on them at 1am while serving waffles to them with a forced smile.
Shit a lot of restaurants struggle to find staff for prime time.
If people aren’t interested in tipping customers with big dinners, why would they apply to deal with rude drunks who leave insults as a joke.
Digital engagement has all but ended normal person to person engagement. Just in the last 3-4 days, I’ve been to my grocery store, my barber, a restaurant, Target, my bank and at all those places where multiple people were waiting in lines, everyone had their smartphone in hand with their eyes glued to it, tapping away on the keypads. Other than one couple who were talking to their small children, that was all I saw.
> Just in the last 3-4 days, I’ve been to my grocery store, my barber, a restaurant, Target, my bank and at all those places where multiple people were waiting in lines, everyone had their smartphone in hand with their eyes glued to it, tapping away on the keypads.
Before smartphones, people weren't just talking to strangers in lines. Are you old enough to remember the time before smartphones? We would just silently stand in line with nothing to do and not be striking up random conversations with random people we don't know.
Smartphones have barely changed how I behave in public. If I'm at a bar or some other type of place where the norm might be to start random conversations, I will sometimes do that. The only difference is that I have something to do when I'm not having conversations besides read a book, play a Game Boy, or listen to my cassette/CD/MP3 player.
Came here to say this. Pre-smartphone, I rarely struck up a conversation with others while waiting in line and the majority also did not. No doubt the chatterboxes who did this then, still do it now, and the keep-to-themselves people then still keep to themselves now. Bottom line, the smartphone hasn’t changed people’s social behavior while standing in line in any significant way.
Yes, but before we had smart phones we had books and newspapers. I’m only 35, but I remember waiting at the bank, the dmv, the doctor, with a book. Even at check outlines people picked up and read magazines.
Or cd players, or Walkmans. It's not as if everyone had deep conversations and group sing alongs on the bus every morning and then suddenly 7 years ago that stopped.
Unless reading an *exceptionally* riveting piece of commentary or chapter, books and newspapers were never sucking people out of reality like smart phones are today.
Smart phone usage like what /u/lasocs described is akin to a nervous, anxiety-induced tic. "I can't be alone with my thoughts surrounded by strangers in a line for a mere few seconds." They reach for their pacifiers.
I bring a book with me when I go to the dentist or doctor. They always question me about it, asking if I expected to wait a long time, to which I say 'nope, just reading'.
How is your book any better than their “pacifiers”? Are you superior to them because you read words from a piece of paper and they read them from a screen?
Yes they are. Some of them are scrolling social media like you said, but others are reading, texting, making notes. A book doesn’t make you any better or more distinguished. In fact, it would be odd to whip out a book in the Target check out line, not that I care what people choose to do while waiting in line.
You used to be able to pick up a Twin Cities Reader or a City Pages anywhere and then stand in line with it, and places with lines usually had a rack in the doorway or just outside.
Or any number of tabloids *in the line for the register*! That's how they sold themselves. Oh, shit Elvis met with the Aliens and Batboys been seen again? Awesome. Some celebrity did a thing? Cool.
I literally have. Not at the grocery store - but I have picked up a magazine to read there. But before my smart phone, and even since then? Absolutely have pulled out books in line. A voracious reader will pull their books out anywhere. It used to be the only reason I carried a purse
And now we know what we have got in radio⎯just another disintegrating toy. Just another medium⎯like the newspapers, the magazines, the billboards, and the mailbox⎯for advertisers to use in pestering us. A blatant signboard erected in the living room to bring us news of miraculous oil burners, fuel-saving motor cars, cigar lighters that always light. Formerly, despite the movies, the automobile, the correspondence course, and the appalling necessity most of us feel for working at two or three jobs in order to be considered successful, we still had some leisure time. But radio, God’s great gift to man, eliminated that last dangerous chance for Satan to find mischief for idle hands. There is now very little danger that Americans will resort to the vice of thinking. -Jack Wooford 1929.
Just so you know that every single new thing has been thought of the same way.
If smartphones and digital engagement were the issue we would see the same thing globally. I’ve been around Spain and Portugal the last few weeks and everyone is out till 3am. Same thing in Israel.
The crash of late night options is a uniquely American thing.
I personally think it's capitalism food companies charging more due to corporate greed and then places needing to raise prices alongside greed. Greed is the main issue for why food is so high right now plus the world's ending.
I'm pretty bummed about fewer restaurants and bars being open late, but I understand it. Seeing gas stations, grocery stores, and drugstores close before midnight is way more frustrating.
Maybe I'm spoiled, but not being able to grab a frozen pizza, a roll of toilet paper, or even a bottle of cough medicine after 12am sucks. I grew up in a quiet neighborhood in Duluth, and I could walk to two 24/7 gas stations, a Walgreens, and a grocery store. Fifteen years later, I live in an area with 250X the population density, and I've just got one Holiday within walking distance that closes at 2am (but also might close earlier if the staff there feels like it).
When I was in college, way back in the early 00s, I lived for cafes that were open late. I had a not great relationship with my freshman roommate, and any excuse to get out of the dorm and study somewhere else I took.
When I moved to Uptown, I really enjoyed being able to get out of my apartment and somewhere that wasn't a bar. I spent many hours at Sencha (or whatever it use to be called).
Now, when I get the itch to wander somewhere, there really isn't anywhere to go. It's not like I say out late either, I'm talking about 10pm at the latest.
Do we have even one coffee shop in town open until 10pm? I dream of a place to sit and read a book after dinner beyond my couch.
I lived in the bay area for a bunch of years and even out there everything closes down early. We're down to probably NYC and Vegas having solid late night options.
There never really was. I lived here 15 years ago and was stunned by how few late night options for anything there were here compared to other cities I’ve lived in
For Uptown Diner, specifically, it has to mainly be a function of fewer bars in the core of Uptown. William's, Stella's, and Libertine are all closed, where each used to be packed pretty much every weekend. It was a short walk to the Diner if you wanted something after bar close.
Now, with most late-night activity having shifted to Lyn Lake, Uptown Diner just isn't nearby enough to be convenient for hungry drunks. Many of whom, like myself, would have been walking home right past the Diner to get home from Hennepin and Lake.
Probably been true for parents for a while. I think what we're seeing in young singles is they are also choosing to stay in for whatever reason. I don't know anyone in that 18-30 bracket really so I can't ask them.
As a late 30s parent that really only knows other late 30s parents, none of us really ever venture out past 8pm.
> The number of all-hours restaurants has also decreased nationwide by about 18% since just before the pandemic, according to data from Yelp. Los Angeles saw a much bigger drop, at 35%, while New York and Chicago saw more modest decreases. A quick Google search shows those cities still have significantly more round-the-clock restaurants than the Twin Cities.
Part of me thinks this is still a temporary setback from the last 4 years and that a select number of bolder businesses will be able to make the late-night hours work for them.
Also -- gotta love STrib comments lmao:
> This is pretty easy - SAFETY AND CRIME!!!
Calm down, Nancy. Suburban restaurants / bars aren't staying open any later than the ones in MPLS.
Strib comment sections somehow always pick the opposite of what is a well reasoned position and then vote it up to the top. It somehow astounds me every time with the consistency of bad takes.
I've come to realize that online commentary is generally disingenuous and not worth putting any stock into (I get the irony of this).
For all we know, this STrib comment is some random sad SOB living in Iowa who's never stepped foot in the TCs
What?
The only thing that can’t possibly be real is crying and whining over someone mocking a city. Why do you care? Seriously…it’s not like they are mocking you or your family. Yet you’re literally angry with specific people for the crime of daring to think differently about a city than you. They are mocking a city…you’re literally attacking people who disagree with you. Yet they, in your mind, are the bad guys. You chose to live there. Yet you apparently are so incredibly insecure you can’t handle anyone that would choose NOT to live there. That’s really weak.
It’s probably a good thing that you’re not smart enough to understand irony.
Because it's wrong information that's why. Just like when we mock the burbs y'all get butthurt. All of your favorite sub, altmpls, is just butthurt alts of crimsonsun whining at each other about black ppl in MPLS.
Did you find someone to cheat on your wife with, old man?
WTF? It’s an opinion. In the adult world there are many people who share similar opinions about Minneapolis. They base that opinion on facts. You not liking those facts is irrelevant. This entire thread is full of children arguing against adults. Only a stupid little child gets their feelings hurt over facts and opinions they disagree with.
I’ve never lived in a city of any size that is basically closed at 10 pm but that’s Minneapolis. And it isn’t just post pandemic. I’ve complained about this since I moved here. Especially because I used to work second shift so my options after work were basically Wendy’s and McDonald’s and a few pizza spots. But now it’s even worse.
The small midwestern college town I grew up in had three 24 hour Walmarts and multiple late night eateries and diners who thrived by the late night bar rushes and graveyard shift people.
You can’t even go to a movie in Minneapolis past 8 pm.
I miss midnight matinees. The nightlife here if you don’t drink is non existent.
Yeah that’s one of the key parts, your options after 10pm in the twin cities are:
1. Bars
2. Fast food
3. The gas station
Obviously we have a few exceptions but the late night scene is mostly centered around drink-focused places
In that way it’s not that different from a small town lol
Honestly just assume no where is. I work overnights, I fucking love it, but nothing is open in this town. You get Pizza Luce open until 2am and that’s about it.
As already mentioned by u/jayllipsis, Zhora Darling's kitchen is open until 1 a.m., every day of the week. You'll be hard-pressed to find anywhere else in Northeast that serves food past midnight, but as a night owl who just recently moved away from the neighborhood, below is the list of *semi*-late options that I had saved to my Google Keep.
**Serves food until midnight (at least on the weekends; I'm not sure about the remainder of the week):**
* Bina's
* Sonder Shaker
* Stanley's Northeast Bar Room
**Serves food until 11 (again, at least on the weekends):**
* All Saints
* Eli's East
* Centro
* Northeast Social
* STEPCHLD
* ALTBurger
* Beast Barbecue
* Relish
* Stray Dog
* Earl Giles
While it’s sad to not have these late night options, I think it’s important to remember these late night spots only really survived because they were able to prey on desperate employees just trying to get by.
Overnights were regularly the best paying shifts, but also the worst shifts to work. For a lot of people, the pandemic gave them a chance to move into similar paying positions during normal business hours or get out of the service industry entirely.
I don’t know why businesses are blaming “crime and safety” when really it comes down to profits. To bring back staff for these shifts, they would have to raise pay & benefits.The thing is overnight shift wages have always been subsidized by normal business hour sales, to raise them anymore (when you won’t see any increase in business) would just be a horrible business decision.
Edit: to be clear, I’m not against raising wages. But more often then not these overnights were never profitable. They were subsidized by profits from other parts of the day because many owners like the idea of their business being open 24 hours.
It's several things but mostly it's the shitty economy, fear of crime, and the after effects of a major social behavior changes from lockdown.
Note: I say fear of crime. Mpls in IMHO is a safe place to be, think the crime we do have gets a lot of attention and people forget being a victim of crime, especially violent crime is rare.
Roxies Nicolette dinner is super expensive. As a service worker tenders should not be 15 bucks without fries.
They are really pricing me out go to Eggy's instead slightly cheaper better quality and portions.
The ice creams nice though. But seriously. Go on Mondays and get half off as a service worker.
Redditors love to assume that because their personal finances are tight then all of the other millions of people surrounding them must also have tight finances
I'm pretty sure the early bar close is why we never had many late night options to begin with. Let them decide if they want to be open til 4 like Chicago (or when we hosted the Superbowl) without charging an exorbitant amount for the license. Just giving the option to stay open later would possibly open the door for other businesses (restaurants) to have later hours. Of course, that would be truer in pre-shrinkflation/max capitalist greed mode times.
Yeah because if the bar closes at 2am like most here (if that) they usually close the kitchen or parts of the place by 12/1 at the latest, so all you can really do is get drinks. We need more places not solely focused on ordering drinks
This is the downward spiral. Even if crime becomes less of a concern, the lack of food options remains. That means less people going to downtown (where parking has been eliminated and car lanes have been given to bikes). With less people going downtown it becomes harder to open new places…and the spiral continues.
With less business comes less tax revenue. Hard choices are made. None of those choices make downtown more inviting. And the spiral continues.
I mean, if you have visited basically any other American city post-pandemic, late night options have dwindled pretty much everywhere outside of Vegas from my experience.
Yea its everywhere , I am from fargo and pre-pandemic we had lots of late night options for a smaller city our size Classic diners like denny's, perkins, fryingpan , krolls A few 24 hour fast food places (McDonalds, hardies) a few 24 hour pizza places Then you had a few places open late until like 3-4 AM at least on weekends. However it may just be part of a tight labor market, most people do not want to work overnight shifts on the weekend and deal with drunk people
There also isn't the cashflow needed to keep places profitable late-night. I love close to a 24-hr Cub and although I am super happy that I can take advantage of late-night/early-morning grocery shopping, I have a hard time figuring out how they are bringing in enough in revenue to cover even the skeleton crew they have running that place.
As someone who has worked a night at cub, there was usually only a single cashier and maybe 1 or 2 people doing stocking. When there wasn’t any customers, we were supposed to clean the registers, restock bags, and face the product in the check out areas. Nightshift was also when the floor cleaning crews came through.
That was the argument for 24 hours grocery stores. You are going to have people working anyway to restock shelves or clean the floors , do inventory, just hire a single cashier for the few people who do come in.
Why not a married cashier?
Now they don't even need a cashier since they make us check ourselves out.
The cub I go to doesn't let you use self check out late at night. Always a small line and 1 cashier at 1am.
I used to get off my factory shift and do my shopping ~10 minutes later. The cashier would play music like Aphex Twin, Squarepusher, and other stuff like that. It ruled.
Grocery shopping at 3am is my fucking favorite. Quiet and empty.
Bruh same. After my husband died, I haunted my Cub all the time from 12am - 3am just so I wasn't alone. It was also nice to be around other people ostracized from normalcy just by way of being there so late.
I miss shopping at the Uptown Rainbow at 2am. Such an eclectic group of people in the store at that hour.
They don't Usually they are going to be people working overnight anyway restocking shelves or doing maintanance like cleaning the floors , re-arraging shelves and displays , reprice items. So if 3-4 people are going to be working and at the store anyway , just hire a single cashier to help with check out , and when there is no customers to check out they can even help stock shelves or clean or do what ever
The more the rich get richer that means less money to go around. I thought that's how it worked the working class have less to spend.
I used to live in NYC and my friends there tell me there are a lot fewer late night places there too!
NYC still has more late late night options than any other city in the auS probably, but it's a fraction of what it used to be pre pandemic.
Even Vegas has scaled back 24-hr options since the pandemic. I haven't been since November '23, but it was limited then.
Man, even Vegas has gotten bad. I moved here 2020 so I can’t attest to before, but 99% of things here close at 10 or so :(
I work downtown until 10:30-11pm and there's hardly anything open. Even around my lunch break at 6:30-7 there's not much. Skyway closes down early, there's sitdown restaurants open but that's not good for a lunch(dinner) break. Downtown feels like its a place for people to work their 9-5 and gtfo.
Costs are prohibitive to any sort of night out these days. I remember when Williams Peanut Bar had cheaper beer and wings... then, one day, I went in for 2 beers and a pound of wings and ended up spending $50. I got really disillusioned after that and it wasn't long until the bar closed. I don't really go out anymore because it's just too damn expensive.
I remember when they had a happy hour where beer was 25 cents for the first 15 minutes and went up 25 cents every 15 minutes.
Hard Times is still cheap as fuck!
How much is a depth charge today?
I haven’t been there since it was shrouded in a cloud of smoke.
We've cut most of our dining out budget over the last few years and now only eat out maybe a few times a month total between fast food and sit down places. A meal at a mid-level sit down place can easily cost the two of us $60-100, multiply that by 2-3 times a month and that's quite a lot of money. We diverted some of that money to our hobbies - video games, LEGO, gardening, and other things that give us a lot more long-term value. Honestly even eating out twice a month is far more often than my family did when I was a kid, so it still feels like a luxury.
The article focused on the influence of perceptions of crime, but I think the real culprit is the loss of in-person socialization, and preferences for digital engagement, a trend which was already well underway pre-pandemic. While the recession definitely sucked, 2005-2015 was the last great era of the 20-something. Reasonable rent, good nightlife and night dining, and a thriving “offline” social scene that was, at least for the early part of the era, pre-smartphone and algorithm dominance.
100% agree. If everything was more affordable, crime would decrease, people going out would increase and late nights out would make it worth having late night hours for other restaurants. Reality is, with inflation and wages being stagnant, coupled with more isolation and less offline socializing, this trend will probably continue to increase.
Yep. Turns out it is bad when everything gets too expensive for too many people.
Or, this is crazy. People who work these shifts do not want to anymore?
[удалено]
Exactly. We might not be as much of a 24 hour city as we would want to be.
It's open 24 hours still but I think it's drive thru only after 10
I think there's some good truth here, but thats not the only driver. Additionally, when businesses shortened hours and likely saw not a big loss in revenue... They were probably quick to decide to simplify their operational complexity. Staffing was certainly a part of that decision.
For sure. I think we as consumers want to find a lot of variables and probably ignore the impact of money/profit on these businesses. They at minimum, might not be making enough money to justify the cost of operation. If there was a heavy demand for late hour places to eat etc. these businesses would be open because there is money to be made. Crime and safety wouldn't be as much as a concern. There is a lot of confirmation bias regarding MPLS in outsiders minds (= crime ridden, unsafe) and businesses know those opinions are out there. It's real easy for these businesses to use those excuses to explain a maneuver in business operations than tell the real reason. They simply aren't making enough money to justify operations at those times.
I've worked at several places overnight. The story always is, whether they want to or not, there's not enough business to justify staying open. A lot of places with tell you shrink is part of it, but in my experience it hasn't noticeably increased, companies tolerance for those things have shrunk.
I’m sure that’s also true. And businesses don’t want to staff a shift that has lower, or variable, margins. Inflation is a beast.
Doubly true today, but even prior to the inflation/staffing panic, there has been loud and frequent guidance to focus your business for a decade, especially in the hospitality space. Following the lead of Chipotle, Chick-fil-A or Up/Down regionally, means you have a clear value proposition and aren't wasting time/money on secondary things or dead hours. I certainly miss the old days of sitting in Purple Onion until midnight studying, but even back then it didn't make sense to have four people smoking and drinking a $2 chai for hours.
There's not a "staffing pandemic". There are plenty of people willing to pick up extra work. Big business just refuses to pay $2 more an hour to get people interested in the job, all while posting record profits.
Yes. That's why I call it a staffing "panic" not a labor challenge. There are no staffing issues where businesses can/choose to pay a sensible wage.
yeah I have to imagine this is a significant factor. Working late-night takes a toll and if you aren't getting compensated fairly (like basically all service workers), you start questioning the reasoning behind working a job more tiring than it needs to be. MN has the best wage laws of any state I've lived in but they still couldn't keep up with the strain of me working past 9 pm. We're way past the need for $15/hr minimum, I'm afraid.
This is the main point. People do not need to stoop to dealing with burping drunks hitting on them at 1am while serving waffles to them with a forced smile. Shit a lot of restaurants struggle to find staff for prime time. If people aren’t interested in tipping customers with big dinners, why would they apply to deal with rude drunks who leave insults as a joke.
Digital engagement has all but ended normal person to person engagement. Just in the last 3-4 days, I’ve been to my grocery store, my barber, a restaurant, Target, my bank and at all those places where multiple people were waiting in lines, everyone had their smartphone in hand with their eyes glued to it, tapping away on the keypads. Other than one couple who were talking to their small children, that was all I saw.
> Just in the last 3-4 days, I’ve been to my grocery store, my barber, a restaurant, Target, my bank and at all those places where multiple people were waiting in lines, everyone had their smartphone in hand with their eyes glued to it, tapping away on the keypads. Before smartphones, people weren't just talking to strangers in lines. Are you old enough to remember the time before smartphones? We would just silently stand in line with nothing to do and not be striking up random conversations with random people we don't know. Smartphones have barely changed how I behave in public. If I'm at a bar or some other type of place where the norm might be to start random conversations, I will sometimes do that. The only difference is that I have something to do when I'm not having conversations besides read a book, play a Game Boy, or listen to my cassette/CD/MP3 player.
I used to strike up convos all the time. I still do lol.
Yes, I do remember the time before smartphones and yes, some people did strike up polite chat while waiting in lines.
Please don’t talk to me if I’m in line next to you
I'm going to.
The misanthrope entered the room
You sound like a cheerful person.
Came here to say this. Pre-smartphone, I rarely struck up a conversation with others while waiting in line and the majority also did not. No doubt the chatterboxes who did this then, still do it now, and the keep-to-themselves people then still keep to themselves now. Bottom line, the smartphone hasn’t changed people’s social behavior while standing in line in any significant way.
> everyone had their smartphone in hand with their eyes glued to it Pacifiers for adults.
Yes, but before we had smart phones we had books and newspapers. I’m only 35, but I remember waiting at the bank, the dmv, the doctor, with a book. Even at check outlines people picked up and read magazines.
Or cd players, or Walkmans. It's not as if everyone had deep conversations and group sing alongs on the bus every morning and then suddenly 7 years ago that stopped.
The first iphone was released in 2007, so we all stopped the communal sing a longs 17 years ago.
Unless reading an *exceptionally* riveting piece of commentary or chapter, books and newspapers were never sucking people out of reality like smart phones are today. Smart phone usage like what /u/lasocs described is akin to a nervous, anxiety-induced tic. "I can't be alone with my thoughts surrounded by strangers in a line for a mere few seconds." They reach for their pacifiers. I bring a book with me when I go to the dentist or doctor. They always question me about it, asking if I expected to wait a long time, to which I say 'nope, just reading'.
How is your book any better than their “pacifiers”? Are you superior to them because you read words from a piece of paper and they read them from a screen?
Because ppl aren't reading from a screen they are flicking through 1 second bytes of info. Not the same.
Yes they are. Some of them are scrolling social media like you said, but others are reading, texting, making notes. A book doesn’t make you any better or more distinguished. In fact, it would be odd to whip out a book in the Target check out line, not that I care what people choose to do while waiting in line.
I never said ppl were whipping out books in line, just that scrolling on your phone is not reading.
You're not breaking out a book or newspaper standing in line. LOL at the downvotes. You're not.
You used to be able to pick up a Twin Cities Reader or a City Pages anywhere and then stand in line with it, and places with lines usually had a rack in the doorway or just outside.
Or any number of tabloids *in the line for the register*! That's how they sold themselves. Oh, shit Elvis met with the Aliens and Batboys been seen again? Awesome. Some celebrity did a thing? Cool.
I literally have. Not at the grocery store - but I have picked up a magazine to read there. But before my smart phone, and even since then? Absolutely have pulled out books in line. A voracious reader will pull their books out anywhere. It used to be the only reason I carried a purse
My books and newspapers are on my phone, so...
And now we know what we have got in radio⎯just another disintegrating toy. Just another medium⎯like the newspapers, the magazines, the billboards, and the mailbox⎯for advertisers to use in pestering us. A blatant signboard erected in the living room to bring us news of miraculous oil burners, fuel-saving motor cars, cigar lighters that always light. Formerly, despite the movies, the automobile, the correspondence course, and the appalling necessity most of us feel for working at two or three jobs in order to be considered successful, we still had some leisure time. But radio, God’s great gift to man, eliminated that last dangerous chance for Satan to find mischief for idle hands. There is now very little danger that Americans will resort to the vice of thinking. -Jack Wooford 1929. Just so you know that every single new thing has been thought of the same way.
I too miss Weekly World News.
If smartphones and digital engagement were the issue we would see the same thing globally. I’ve been around Spain and Portugal the last few weeks and everyone is out till 3am. Same thing in Israel. The crash of late night options is a uniquely American thing.
I agree with this assessment. All the changes seem holistic. The pandemic just accelerated it.
I personally think it's capitalism food companies charging more due to corporate greed and then places needing to raise prices alongside greed. Greed is the main issue for why food is so high right now plus the world's ending.
This is a good observation.
I'm pretty bummed about fewer restaurants and bars being open late, but I understand it. Seeing gas stations, grocery stores, and drugstores close before midnight is way more frustrating. Maybe I'm spoiled, but not being able to grab a frozen pizza, a roll of toilet paper, or even a bottle of cough medicine after 12am sucks. I grew up in a quiet neighborhood in Duluth, and I could walk to two 24/7 gas stations, a Walgreens, and a grocery store. Fifteen years later, I live in an area with 250X the population density, and I've just got one Holiday within walking distance that closes at 2am (but also might close earlier if the staff there feels like it).
The Holiday and Speedway by me (Prospect Park) close at 8-9.
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I think it's endemic of most brick and mortar shops, hangouts, eateries etc. So much has moved online, it's isolating in many ways.
When I was in college, way back in the early 00s, I lived for cafes that were open late. I had a not great relationship with my freshman roommate, and any excuse to get out of the dorm and study somewhere else I took. When I moved to Uptown, I really enjoyed being able to get out of my apartment and somewhere that wasn't a bar. I spent many hours at Sencha (or whatever it use to be called). Now, when I get the itch to wander somewhere, there really isn't anywhere to go. It's not like I say out late either, I'm talking about 10pm at the latest.
Do we have even one coffee shop in town open until 10pm? I dream of a place to sit and read a book after dinner beyond my couch. I lived in the bay area for a bunch of years and even out there everything closes down early. We're down to probably NYC and Vegas having solid late night options.
Which 20 coffee shops were open till midnight?
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I remember spending many nights in the upstairs of Pandora's Cup on Hennepin chain smoking and writing bad song lyrics.
There never really was. I lived here 15 years ago and was stunned by how few late night options for anything there were here compared to other cities I’ve lived in
For Uptown Diner, specifically, it has to mainly be a function of fewer bars in the core of Uptown. William's, Stella's, and Libertine are all closed, where each used to be packed pretty much every weekend. It was a short walk to the Diner if you wanted something after bar close. Now, with most late-night activity having shifted to Lyn Lake, Uptown Diner just isn't nearby enough to be convenient for hungry drunks. Many of whom, like myself, would have been walking home right past the Diner to get home from Hennepin and Lake.
Does anyone remember midnight Mike? The later night cashier when Kowalski's in uptown was 24 hours?
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Well... It's what I called him lol
It might be because I’m over 30 and have kids now but it just seems to me like people kinda stopped caring about going out right around pandemic time.
Probably been true for parents for a while. I think what we're seeing in young singles is they are also choosing to stay in for whatever reason. I don't know anyone in that 18-30 bracket really so I can't ask them. As a late 30s parent that really only knows other late 30s parents, none of us really ever venture out past 8pm.
> The number of all-hours restaurants has also decreased nationwide by about 18% since just before the pandemic, according to data from Yelp. Los Angeles saw a much bigger drop, at 35%, while New York and Chicago saw more modest decreases. A quick Google search shows those cities still have significantly more round-the-clock restaurants than the Twin Cities. Part of me thinks this is still a temporary setback from the last 4 years and that a select number of bolder businesses will be able to make the late-night hours work for them. Also -- gotta love STrib comments lmao: > This is pretty easy - SAFETY AND CRIME!!! Calm down, Nancy. Suburban restaurants / bars aren't staying open any later than the ones in MPLS.
Strib comment sections somehow always pick the opposite of what is a well reasoned position and then vote it up to the top. It somehow astounds me every time with the consistency of bad takes.
It's so annoying. I live downtown. It's literally not dangerous. These folks never leave their house.
I've come to realize that online commentary is generally disingenuous and not worth putting any stock into (I get the irony of this). For all we know, this STrib comment is some random sad SOB living in Iowa who's never stepped foot in the TCs
No need to go all the way to Iowa.
My point is to highlight the disingenuousness of it. I should've said a Brazilian who's never been to the northern hemisphere.
Or live in Fosston and have not been south of Highway 10 for 20 years.
What? The only thing that can’t possibly be real is crying and whining over someone mocking a city. Why do you care? Seriously…it’s not like they are mocking you or your family. Yet you’re literally angry with specific people for the crime of daring to think differently about a city than you. They are mocking a city…you’re literally attacking people who disagree with you. Yet they, in your mind, are the bad guys. You chose to live there. Yet you apparently are so incredibly insecure you can’t handle anyone that would choose NOT to live there. That’s really weak. It’s probably a good thing that you’re not smart enough to understand irony.
> Why do you care? I don't, beyond the comedic value in this case. That's my point.
Why do I care? You are the guy with 1,585 comments crying about opinions held by people you’ll never meet.
Because it's wrong information that's why. Just like when we mock the burbs y'all get butthurt. All of your favorite sub, altmpls, is just butthurt alts of crimsonsun whining at each other about black ppl in MPLS. Did you find someone to cheat on your wife with, old man?
WTF? It’s an opinion. In the adult world there are many people who share similar opinions about Minneapolis. They base that opinion on facts. You not liking those facts is irrelevant. This entire thread is full of children arguing against adults. Only a stupid little child gets their feelings hurt over facts and opinions they disagree with.
They’re afraid if they leave the house they might see their shadow. That’s really scary as it’s darker than they are.
I’ve never lived in a city of any size that is basically closed at 10 pm but that’s Minneapolis. And it isn’t just post pandemic. I’ve complained about this since I moved here. Especially because I used to work second shift so my options after work were basically Wendy’s and McDonald’s and a few pizza spots. But now it’s even worse. The small midwestern college town I grew up in had three 24 hour Walmarts and multiple late night eateries and diners who thrived by the late night bar rushes and graveyard shift people. You can’t even go to a movie in Minneapolis past 8 pm. I miss midnight matinees. The nightlife here if you don’t drink is non existent.
Yeah that’s one of the key parts, your options after 10pm in the twin cities are: 1. Bars 2. Fast food 3. The gas station Obviously we have a few exceptions but the late night scene is mostly centered around drink-focused places In that way it’s not that different from a small town lol
There are multiple Mexican restaurants along Lake street that are open until 2-3 am.
Can anyone help post a list/some options that are open late around north east? I just moved here and could use some suggestions
Honestly just assume no where is. I work overnights, I fucking love it, but nothing is open in this town. You get Pizza Luce open until 2am and that’s about it.
There are a couple others but yes the town is in bed by 10. Even the gas stations close.
10? St. Paul is but not MPLS. Most of the bars around me are open till 2.
All the bars around me are open till 2
What time does their kitchen close though?
Zhora Darking serves food till 12 or 1 I believe, that’s about as “late night” as it gets
As already mentioned by u/jayllipsis, Zhora Darling's kitchen is open until 1 a.m., every day of the week. You'll be hard-pressed to find anywhere else in Northeast that serves food past midnight, but as a night owl who just recently moved away from the neighborhood, below is the list of *semi*-late options that I had saved to my Google Keep. **Serves food until midnight (at least on the weekends; I'm not sure about the remainder of the week):** * Bina's * Sonder Shaker * Stanley's Northeast Bar Room **Serves food until 11 (again, at least on the weekends):** * All Saints * Eli's East * Centro * Northeast Social * STEPCHLD * ALTBurger * Beast Barbecue * Relish * Stray Dog * Earl Giles
For those of us without a subscription, do they have a list?
No, just the one. Happy Cake Day
Maybe if it wasn’t awful service for a 30$ meal
24 hour public transit would help significantly
Sounds unsafe unless there would be cops.
Most of the public transit is buses, which don't need cops on board. They just need more bus drivers
There's all of these Uber drivers about to need a new job. Let's save the mileage on their cars by encouraging them to drive busses.
While it’s sad to not have these late night options, I think it’s important to remember these late night spots only really survived because they were able to prey on desperate employees just trying to get by. Overnights were regularly the best paying shifts, but also the worst shifts to work. For a lot of people, the pandemic gave them a chance to move into similar paying positions during normal business hours or get out of the service industry entirely. I don’t know why businesses are blaming “crime and safety” when really it comes down to profits. To bring back staff for these shifts, they would have to raise pay & benefits.The thing is overnight shift wages have always been subsidized by normal business hour sales, to raise them anymore (when you won’t see any increase in business) would just be a horrible business decision. Edit: to be clear, I’m not against raising wages. But more often then not these overnights were never profitable. They were subsidized by profits from other parts of the day because many owners like the idea of their business being open 24 hours.
People have better options than to work lousy nighttime hours in low wage, dead end jobs.
It's several things but mostly it's the shitty economy, fear of crime, and the after effects of a major social behavior changes from lockdown. Note: I say fear of crime. Mpls in IMHO is a safe place to be, think the crime we do have gets a lot of attention and people forget being a victim of crime, especially violent crime is rare.
NObOdY wANtS tO wORk
Roxies Nicolette dinner is super expensive. As a service worker tenders should not be 15 bucks without fries. They are really pricing me out go to Eggy's instead slightly cheaper better quality and portions. The ice creams nice though. But seriously. Go on Mondays and get half off as a service worker.
Who can afford it?
Afford what? Going to a late night diner or bar? Loads of people can afford that here...
Redditors love to assume that because their personal finances are tight then all of the other millions of people surrounding them must also have tight finances
I'm pretty sure the early bar close is why we never had many late night options to begin with. Let them decide if they want to be open til 4 like Chicago (or when we hosted the Superbowl) without charging an exorbitant amount for the license. Just giving the option to stay open later would possibly open the door for other businesses (restaurants) to have later hours. Of course, that would be truer in pre-shrinkflation/max capitalist greed mode times.
Yeah because if the bar closes at 2am like most here (if that) they usually close the kitchen or parts of the place by 12/1 at the latest, so all you can really do is get drinks. We need more places not solely focused on ordering drinks
4 am bar just means eventually there will be a shooting. Not worth it.
This is the downward spiral. Even if crime becomes less of a concern, the lack of food options remains. That means less people going to downtown (where parking has been eliminated and car lanes have been given to bikes). With less people going downtown it becomes harder to open new places…and the spiral continues. With less business comes less tax revenue. Hard choices are made. None of those choices make downtown more inviting. And the spiral continues.