Culture
A Brief History of the 24-Hour Convenience Store
Remembering a time when bacon, egg, and cheeses were not available round-the-clock.
Imagine, for a moment, a street corner in New York. There might be stray garbage in the gutters, there might be a swarm of tourists, there might be a taxi veering just a bit too close to the curb. And there is a good chance that there’s a store you can walk into, at any hour of day or night, and satisfy a craving for coffee or a bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich.
Stores open 24 hours are ubiquitous across America. Of the 152,794 shops listed by the National Association of Convenience Stores, 90 percent are round-the-clock operations. New York City alone houses upwards of 1,500 independently-run bodegas; it’s hard to imagine the five boroughs without them.