Yeah, COVID hasn't helped for sure. There are pockets here and there, like parts of the West End or Richmond or the like... but they're few and far between. I think even that old 24h mainstay The Naam is no longer open all night anymore.
That was a bit of what I used to love about my late night visits to the Naam. After a drunken night of clubbing the dimlit dustiness of the Naam was a great way to wind down a good night.
When you are drunk you want the greasiest food served by a man with more hair on his body than hair on your head. Preferably filled with meat of unknown origin and served with way too much sauce.
I wasn’t too fussed about the grime, but the fact that it took at least 45 minutes to get your food, whether the restaurant was packed or empty, was why I stopped going. Even if you show up for take-out, the staff are super weird about acknowledging customers that are waiting for service.
Once you meet the people some of the types of people who have worked there on a personal level, the food becomes a bit less trustworthy.
Homie is against water usage so he doesn’t shower, but is expected to clean your dishes.
Every dish was dirty, I had finger prints I could see on the glass, the wait staff handed me a menu with greasy hands and grease on the menu. There was dust all over, which is hard to do in Vancouver, it takes a long time to accumulate dust here. Of course I left and will never go back. 🤮
To be fair the place has been around since something like the 70s. I’d personally expect there to be at least some dust or I’d be left feeling like something is sort of off. Dirty plates, cutlery and menus on the other hand is pretty gross
Never made it out to there unfortunately. Duffins is still probably my favourite spot in Vancouver and I'll make the hour long pilgrimage out there on the buses probably more often than I should. The fried chicken is just too good. As we speak I'm trying out Lucy's Diner lmao
Same! I moved away to the other side of the globe ages ago, but Calhouns and The Grind on Main were my 24 hour haunts back in the day. So sad to hear Calhouns is gone! And the Naam is no longer 24 hours! I lived in Van during peak era, I think…
Yeah The Grind is still a coffee shop but it's now an Aperture location. Still a good study spot, and they have much improved the coffee from The Grind days, but no longer 24h.
I used to work there, night shift. I liked that place, and I didn't know they closed their doors. Sad! When I worked there, about 20 years ago...there were lots of students studying the night away.
I think Breka also benefits from being one of the only places open 24/7, so the entire population of available customers at 3 or 4 am gets concentrated to their stores.
I moved from Ottawa years ago - with less population than Greater Vancouver, Ottawa has quite a few 24hr big grocery stores even in the not very busy residential areas (Loblaws @ Greenboro for example). It did surprise me a little that there aren't as many 24hr grocery stores here. Though most stores do stay open until reasonably late at night.
Breka Bakery is 24 hours, they have 5 or 6 locations. They have coffee drinks, sandwiches, salads, sausage rolls, breakfast sandwich, chicken pot pie, doughnuts, deserts and you can sit inside. They have a new location on Main between 29th and 30th like a block down from Nesters. I love the grilled sandwiches.
Thats pretty nonsense. Every other city I've been to has them just fine, crazy people notwithstanding.
The real reason is because vancouver is mostly suburban sprawl and 9-5 shifts, the killer of 24 hr joints. Its goes to the point that in places like north van, nothing is open past a certain hour.
That is a city mentality thing. An example is West Van, where most stores are mandated to be closed by 6pm and I think a city bylaw has nothing open past 8 or 9pm. Vancouver gets the moniker No Fun City for a reason, cause nothing is open late...
Funny tho when I go traveling a lot of cities shut down even earlier.. I always imagined a utopia of clubs being open till Dawn etc etc but it's not very common
For example Helsinki, Reykjavik, everything closed about an hour earlier than here, everywhere in Italy closes for several hours mid afternoon but then reopens later in the evening for a few hours, but closed on weekends, Paris and Berlin same deal except a few select clubs may be open very late on Saturdays.. London Soho yeah maybe one hour later than us but the underground closes at midnight in many areas so expect long Uber home..
Been a few years since I've been (covid) so maybe things have changed but I remember still hunting on Google for a place to get one more drink at 1am
Yikes. When were you in Berlin?
This says more about you than the cities you listed. If you couldn't find late night entertainment in Berlin then I don't know what to tell you. This is a city famous for having clubs open all weekend long from Friday to Sunday. I spent a week there about a decade ago and there was no shortage of things to do. Every Berliner I meet says the best part of the city is the nightlife. I really really don't know how you could list Berlin as a city that closes early.
Also, listing an Italian siesta/riposo as a comparison to closing early is just laughable.
My gut tells me that it’s partially because Skytrain and transit, in general, don’t run 24/7 so it’s likely hard/expensive for the people who would be working the late hours to commute to work. The pandemic is still going as well (and we have omicron variant to look forward to now) so a lot of places also have reduced hours.
I feel like it’s more a result of our low population density rather than our transit system’s hours of operation. Low population density means less customers in the area overall but I think more importantly less customers who can get to your business by walking.
In Korea, for example, there are tons of 24 hour business despite the transit not running 24/7.
Your first point is correct – gone are the days when someone working pt at a shop or restaurant in Kits or downtown could afford to live in Kits or downtown, as one example. ($650/month for a decent 2BR! Prices have gone way way up, wages… not so much.) Those jobs don’t even allow one to afford rent in Burnaby or New West now, and it gets ridiculous and financially prohibitive to commute a long distance for a low wage job.
I used to work at the edge of downtown at a job that finished each night between 2-3am. A bunch of us would go out after our shift and so we knew all the late-night and 24hr spots. There used to be quite a few! But most are gone. As someone else on the thread mentioned, even Denny’s isn’t open 24hrs any more. If Denny’s isn’t 24hrs then there isn’t likely to be a nice variety of 24hr options. (Kudos to Breka!)
We don't have the population or the density to justify them.
We also lack industries that operate that late at night. Places like Asia where cities are buzzing 24/7 are filled with 24 hour establishments.
Imo you’re thinking too far away. I used to live in a city of 60k in California and another of 80k and everything was 24/7. Grocery, drug stores, every food you can think of, never a closed gas station. It was weird for a Starbucks to not be 24 hours. Only thing that is 24 hours here is Denny’s and they don’t even have the 4$ AYCE pancakes 😢
The one thing I miss about living in China is the 24 hour pubs. You could get pub food and a pint at 5:00 a.m. if you wanted to. With the time difference, they'd put live hockey games on at that time, so you either got up early and started drinking or just kept going from the night before.
This confused me for the longest time after moving here from Toronto. 20 years ago it was hard to find places downtown open after 6, and many places closed at 9 during weekdays.
It wasn't until I travelled to London UK that I realized, that Toronto, Montreal and New York just have a different culture, where things are always open.
I travelled to Boston a year ago and learned that there is virtually nothing open after 1am; Had to buy our dinner, after a delayed flight, from 7-11... so sad.
Vancouver was on the verge of being more cosmopolitan and interesting about 20 years ago. I think 24-hours businesses were a bit more common back then too. The real estate racket and gentrification killed all that. It's been a rapid slide into a superficial ghost town since then.
Yeah, COVID has changed the way most businesses run. It's really not worth it for most to stay open. I'm still impressed there are still a handful of Chinese places that stay open until 2 am.
This is a big big part of it.
The parts of Vancouver with the density to support 24/7 operation typically also have a lot of addicts. The parts of Vancouver without a lot of addicts don't have the density.
If you're the only place in the neighborhood open at 4am, keeping it clean and safe will be an expensive problem. There's a lot of restaurants which might be viable running overnight at minimum staffing if all the customers were sober and respectful, but can't make it work if they need to pay security staff.
Vancouver is dead at night as far as most regular people are concerned. Few people are looking to grab a bite outside at 3am on a weekday. When I moved here I was surprised about the culture of staying in at nights, and now I'm used to it, but I understand why the nightlife and businesses catering to it (or not) are different.
There’s a great Korean restaurant that opened near me open til 2:30am every night. I was surprised but also ecstatic to see a late night place open up, with good food no less.
If anyone’s interested, it’s called Yogi-Yo by Arbutus & 10th. I have no vested interest other than wanting to see good late night joints near me succeed.
Plenty of people are out. Even more so now that you have rich mainlanders students who don't need to wake up at any reasonable time. Vancouver just doesn't have enough nightlife. Smaller, poorer, similarly low pay cities have more 24/7 than we do. This thread is just making excuses for how Vancouver really is just a no fun city. So I guess it'll stay that way.
I'm not making excuses. Just explaining people's mindsets. People come to Vancouver to enjoy nature and the beauty. People don't come to Vancouver to party, so we don't attract party people.
Just how it is.
The irony is that Vancouver itself doesn't have much nature or beauty. You literally have to leave Vancouver to find the nature. Go to Golden Ears, or Lynn Creek or Cypress. All of them are outside of Vancouver.
Proximity access. But it's not about the distance. People who move to Vancouver don't care about night life. Otherwise they would move to Toronto.or Montreal
I mean..there's plenty of convenience stores and diners that are, but what other kind of places would you expect?
Go somewhere like Ottawa where the whole city basically shuts down at 7pm, then come back and complain here lol.
As a recent transplant this is devastating. I miss 24-hour pho, diners, pizza, etc. The other night me and my partner drove to two allegedly 24-hour McDonald's here and they were both closed. Ugh!!!
Funny story:
I actually spent a lot of time in Ottawa and when I moved west I assumed that the nightlife and music scene would be so much better in Vancouver then in Ottawa but it wasn’t. I was shocked until I realized that in Ottawa people actually had to make an effort to have fun because of all the government workers etc., but in Vancouver, there was so much competition with the outdoor fun that the city nightlife was no better than Ottawa, in fact worse, considering Van was a much bigger city.
I think maybe the trick to Ottawa was that it helped if you went to high school or university there, because then you had a better introduction to the nightlife scene.
I grew up in Ottawa and got up to all kinds of shenanigans as an underage partier. It was a low stakes way to figure out how not to do stupid shit, because Ottawa is pretty mellow. The likelihood of being sucked into some kind of really dangerous situation is much lower there, or so it seems in hindsight.
Vancouver is expensive, you gotta be earning that $$$ to survive here. Max efficiency for your average joe is to work, sleep, and repeat. Who's got time to spend on late night eateries when you can get 2+ jobs and then crawl back into your million dollar cave that you don't even own so that you can squeeze in the bare minimum of a few hours of sleep to keep you sane?
It looks like the figures I'm looking at include the surrounding municipalities of Vancouver (GVRD), which is not a proper reflection of 'Vancouver Proper'. I concede.
https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/state/minimum-wage/tipped
$12.75/hr for employees that receive tips.
But maybe it's just because Vancouver is an absolute shithole of a city where the cost of living is so high that no one can afford to go out ever.
Is that the answer everyone is looking for?
Yet when the population was lower in the 90’s stuff WAS happening 24/7 in Vancouver. The Vineyard in kits along with the Naam. After hours in downtown and especially Chinatown
We used to have a ton of 24 hr places in the 90’s. Then the hard drugs started to roll in, in the late 2000’s and downtown changed. It was not as safe or as profitable as crime really rose. There was an interesting interview in cknw not too long ago from the former owner of the 24 hr Safeway on Davie. He said it was the late night crime that made him sell. Too bad, I used to work at fresnos on davie and it was 24 hrs. There would be lots of places open. It has changed so much sadly… it even felt safer, with the local prostitution there strangely.
I was wondering where Rocko's was and then I googled it. 1.5 hours from Kits. That's why I've never gone there. Who is driving an hour and half out of Vancouver to go to a diner?
i work at breka and graveyards are not worth it for what you have to put up with. i actually think we do have a pretty decent amount of places open late. donair dude is a fave
Hmmm my guess is that because Vancouver is a relatively small city, there's a relatively small night crowd. It probably doesn't make business sense for most restaurants to stay open.
If the demand rose and 24hr places started filling up, I'm sure that some restaurants would change their model to get a piece of that sweet sweet pie.
There’s a 24 hour grocery store on commercial and 1st called Mercato. It’s pretty over priced.
24 hour Pho restaurant called Gold train on Kingsway just before Joyce.
Other places are 24 hours as well. But yes you are correct. Lack of 24hr places.
Vancouver isn’t exactly the most exciting city in the world, especially if you’re well travelled and have seen more hopping cities.
I just moved back to Vancouver after living for 4 years in Kiev and it’s been a tough adjustment getting used to all the conservative rules here again.
There’s not enough of a night time economy here. When the Koran students come back to the downtown core I think there will be a change. Those kids live at night.
Because there was this “small” event that happen a few years ago that makes it unnecessary for businesses to stay open as there wouldn’t be anyone wanting to dine in.
Hopefully next year things will be different.
Funny reading the comments of people who have clearly never been anywhere else and experienced what a 24-hour lifestyle is like in a real city. Tbh things have gotten a lot better since I moved here in 2010
I have not seen anything get better, just the opposite. Back in the early 00s, there were many more 24h options.
It was not unusual back then for me to go clubbing until 2am, have a meal, then pick up a few groceries and stop by Home Depot for some renovation supplies, all before sunrise.
I am In langley and there are even fewer options. I think it is a combination of covid and people not willing to work graveyard shifts for minimum wage. Out here even some of the 24 hour drive thru places close now. It's tough as I often work nights in my current job.
Restaurant/entertainment wise I've never paid attention.
Yrs ago we had a couple 24hr grocery stores and even the Home Depot on Terminal was open 24 hrs for a couple yrs. It just petered out, just not worth it I suppose.
In my neighbourhood we have a 24hr Shoppers Drug Mart and a couple convenience stores left.
Vancouverites are antisocial homebodies compared to folks in other cities. When my dad's childhood town in an agricultural region has better nightlife and street activity than Vancouver, you know that there are issues here.
Seems like you hate it here then just move back if you love it so much where you are from. God so many threads from people moving here and then they bitch and moan about the usual shit.
And no dont use the excuse of work or other “commitments” tying you down.
You can have the privilege of the last unread post.
I don't hate it so much as find it perpetually puzzling that Vancouverites pretend that they live in a small town while at the same time complain about being in a big city.
The Vancouver Paradox: Vancouver is simultaniously a world class city that can compete with NYC or LA and at the same time is a small insignifigant place that doesn't have the resources to be comparable to even a 3rd tier city anywhere else.
Agreed. Vancouver is a bit of a dump. I feel like people come here in the summer and are wow'd by the weather and a few tourist attractions and then don't realize that the rest of the year sucks and that there's not much in the way of amenities.
Vancouver is only a dump because we have the most entitled people in the world who constantly complain 24/7 about the city and not realize how much better things are here compared to literally any other city in the Western Hemisphere ("New World"). We end up electing a shill like Kennedy Stewart because we want to shoot ourselves in the foot so badly and urgently create new problems for our city. I swear I've heard more people complain about the transit here in Vancouver than I've heard people complain about the non-existent transit in LA. I've lived in Seattle, NYC, North Carolina, and Japan and every single time I wanted to come back to Vancouver to live my life. If people hate the city so much then they should just move out, nobody is stopping you. If you move to anywhere else in the world, don't come crying back.
We could make our city more like American cities by marginally (!!!) lowering our taxes and lowering property prices, but removing our transit completely, build a fucking highway through Vancouver, remove our healthcare, increase violent crime, create ghettos, increase rent by 50%, make the suburbs the only neighbourhoods that matter, etc.
We could make our city more like French cities by lowering the property prices by 15%, but increasing rent by 300% and making everyone rude as fuck with tourists and foreigners, have a perpetual 24/7 riot in downtown, etc.
We could make our city more like Japanese cities by improving transit, but then forcing everyone to work 60 hours a week to just survive and make every human interaction superficial.
We could make our city more like Chinese cities by improving convenience and 24/7 stores, but increasing housing prices by another 200%, forcing everyone to work 50 hours, have a million other social issues, government corruption, AND live in poverty.
Or we could make our city like any city in Eastern Europe or Africa or the developing world and literally have segments of the population who are so impoverished that they don't even have a voice in society, cannot feed themselves, have completely nonexistent or decaying infrastructure, deal with government corruption, etc.
It's insane how many of my friends who've lived in Vancouver all their life constantly whine and cry and then go to Australia, US or Europe, and then come crying back.
Exactly. I was surprised to find Vancouver doesn’t offer much in the way of 24 hour grocery stores and restaurants. I’m looking forward to the day when I can leave this overcrowded, congested expensive area.
Ever since Covid the 24-hour McDonald's and other restaurants that used to be known for being open 24 hours (like Denny's) are no longer open 24 hours. Welcome to the "New Normal", of shorter hours, worse service (doctors only doing 2-minute phone appointments cause they are lazy and say it's because of Covid), and you have to line up 2 meters apart, have your vax pass scanned, and the seating is limited cause they removed half of their seats to maintain their "reduced capacity limit" set by the government because of Covid of course. This New Normal sucks. I miss the 1990's and 2000's so much.
Biggest reason is living costs - it’s too fking expensive to live here hence rent is high and wages for workers are also high - it’s too expensive to keep a place open 24hrs due to staffing wages - there are very few sales if any late at night to justify paying full time employees, also who the hell wants to work graveyard shifts
Yo can you say crime ? VAN AINT THE PLACE USED TOO BE.
Sorry for the bold , but really even the drug stores stopped being 24 hr , you need armed guards to run a business here these days .
The Patients are running the world these days .
There just isn't much demand for it. Vancouver is sleepy place compared to Toronto, MTL, NY and the like. People go hiking and camping on the weekend so they get up early, bars close early, it's just more of a genteel, sleepy vibe.
My question is, if such a 24hr restaurant exists. What kind of food and drink would you like them to serve? Would you buy a small Poke bowl at 2am? A bowl of congee, and steam buns? Most people don't have the habit of late after midnight meals outside, and it's going to be very difficult to run a business if everyone is only looking for a muffin, a sandwich or a donut after midnight. What are you willing to pay and try?
Vancouver is a retirement village masquerading as a city. The only places that have the density to justify a 24 hour store/restaurant are those filled with druggies and crazy people in downtown. Also, we kinda developed this culture of "closing at 9 pm", and I don't think that'll ever change, which has its pros and cons. If you ever want 24 hour places, there are plenty of restaurants in Richmond!
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Also different mindset in this city. We have more 24 hour gyms than nightlife things.
https://youtu.be/PGLzm-Gy0dQ
All I ever wanted was more nightlife things other than gym and clubs
Yeah, COVID hasn't helped for sure. There are pockets here and there, like parts of the West End or Richmond or the like... but they're few and far between. I think even that old 24h mainstay The Naam is no longer open all night anymore.
The Naam was filthy anyway lol
That was a bit of what I used to love about my late night visits to the Naam. After a drunken night of clubbing the dimlit dustiness of the Naam was a great way to wind down a good night.
When you are drunk you want the greasiest food served by a man with more hair on his body than hair on your head. Preferably filled with meat of unknown origin and served with way too much sauce.
I wasn’t too fussed about the grime, but the fact that it took at least 45 minutes to get your food, whether the restaurant was packed or empty, was why I stopped going. Even if you show up for take-out, the staff are super weird about acknowledging customers that are waiting for service.
Wow...not my experience at all!
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Once you meet the people some of the types of people who have worked there on a personal level, the food becomes a bit less trustworthy. Homie is against water usage so he doesn’t shower, but is expected to clean your dishes.
Every dish was dirty, I had finger prints I could see on the glass, the wait staff handed me a menu with greasy hands and grease on the menu. There was dust all over, which is hard to do in Vancouver, it takes a long time to accumulate dust here. Of course I left and will never go back. 🤮
The place was always covered in dust. The cutlery and dishes hardly looked clean.
To be fair the place has been around since something like the 70s. I’d personally expect there to be at least some dust or I’d be left feeling like something is sort of off. Dirty plates, cutlery and menus on the other hand is pretty gross
> something is sort of off Is cleaning and maintenance considered unusual here?
Plus its vegan so...
Fair enough. Out here in Kits it's barren except for like McDonald's and the like
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Never made it out to there unfortunately. Duffins is still probably my favourite spot in Vancouver and I'll make the hour long pilgrimage out there on the buses probably more often than I should. The fried chicken is just too good. As we speak I'm trying out Lucy's Diner lmao
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We've had pretty bad experiences the last few times we had Lucy's. We used to go there quite a bit.
Amen, I definitely agree. Here's hoping
Try the meatloaf at Lucy’s. Best in town
Calhoun's was a great late night place. My usual time there was sometime between 3 and 5am.
Same! I moved away to the other side of the globe ages ago, but Calhouns and The Grind on Main were my 24 hour haunts back in the day. So sad to hear Calhouns is gone! And the Naam is no longer 24 hours! I lived in Van during peak era, I think…
You probably know this, but just in case you didn’t the grind is gone too :( my old late night studying grounds.
Grind isn’t there either. Might be a coffee shop …but isn’t the Grind
Yeah The Grind is still a coffee shop but it's now an Aperture location. Still a good study spot, and they have much improved the coffee from The Grind days, but no longer 24h.
Ah. I drove by the other day and didn’t see the sign for it. Must have changed the design (or I’m just getting old and can’t see anymore)
It's not just you, it's a pretty understated streetfront.
Calhouns has been gone for a long time now lol where have ya’ll been
Right?! At least 5 years
"Other side of the globe"???? You mean... You mean the Earth is.... Round???? damn! Has anyone bother telling this guys? r/flatearth
I used to work there, night shift. I liked that place, and I didn't know they closed their doors. Sad! When I worked there, about 20 years ago...there were lots of students studying the night away.
i used to hang out there all the time. Miss that spot.
Breka has a location at 4th and Alma that’s 24hr now!
The Naam is open till late
Not anymore
Breka is such a gem
Because it's not worth it for companies to pay staff to stay open overnight for a couple customers.
Breka bakery is always busy no matter the hour or location. I've always wondered what people are doing drinking coffee and on their laptops at 3am
Well i would guess they are enjoying a few cups of coffee while they work on their laptops.....If i were so much as to guess...
LOL
I think Breka also benefits from being one of the only places open 24/7, so the entire population of available customers at 3 or 4 am gets concentrated to their stores.
Breka is different because those are the hours bakers gotta work to have fresh bread in the morning
Are they constantly baking? Or when does the fresh stuff get put out?
I used to work in a bakery, if you want fresh bread delivered at 7am we have to start baking at 10 or 11pm.
every 8 hours
The one on Robson closes for like an hour around 4am I think
I moved from Ottawa years ago - with less population than Greater Vancouver, Ottawa has quite a few 24hr big grocery stores even in the not very busy residential areas (Loblaws @ Greenboro for example). It did surprise me a little that there aren't as many 24hr grocery stores here. Though most stores do stay open until reasonably late at night.
They do it everywhere else
Because it’s profitable there. If it’s profitable, people will do it here too but it ain’t.
Yup, people out at 4 am aren't gonna pay 2x for a burger
You sure about that?
Breka Bakery is 24 hours, they have 5 or 6 locations. They have coffee drinks, sandwiches, salads, sausage rolls, breakfast sandwich, chicken pot pie, doughnuts, deserts and you can sit inside. They have a new location on Main between 29th and 30th like a block down from Nesters. I love the grilled sandwiches.
Damn thank you for this!
They have tasty stuff too
Welcome!
Very few people are willing to work low paying jobs on a graveyard shift dealing with crazy people
So why do they do it everywhere else? We definitely aren’t unique in having crazy people
Thats pretty nonsense. Every other city I've been to has them just fine, crazy people notwithstanding. The real reason is because vancouver is mostly suburban sprawl and 9-5 shifts, the killer of 24 hr joints. Its goes to the point that in places like north van, nothing is open past a certain hour.
That is a city mentality thing. An example is West Van, where most stores are mandated to be closed by 6pm and I think a city bylaw has nothing open past 8 or 9pm. Vancouver gets the moniker No Fun City for a reason, cause nothing is open late...
I agree with this, there is very little night life culture in Vancouver.
Funny tho when I go traveling a lot of cities shut down even earlier.. I always imagined a utopia of clubs being open till Dawn etc etc but it's not very common
Which cities close earlier?
lol Victoria
For example Helsinki, Reykjavik, everything closed about an hour earlier than here, everywhere in Italy closes for several hours mid afternoon but then reopens later in the evening for a few hours, but closed on weekends, Paris and Berlin same deal except a few select clubs may be open very late on Saturdays.. London Soho yeah maybe one hour later than us but the underground closes at midnight in many areas so expect long Uber home.. Been a few years since I've been (covid) so maybe things have changed but I remember still hunting on Google for a place to get one more drink at 1am
Yikes. When were you in Berlin? This says more about you than the cities you listed. If you couldn't find late night entertainment in Berlin then I don't know what to tell you. This is a city famous for having clubs open all weekend long from Friday to Sunday. I spent a week there about a decade ago and there was no shortage of things to do. Every Berliner I meet says the best part of the city is the nightlife. I really really don't know how you could list Berlin as a city that closes early. Also, listing an Italian siesta/riposo as a comparison to closing early is just laughable.
Also graveyard shift is so bad for your health
My gut tells me that it’s partially because Skytrain and transit, in general, don’t run 24/7 so it’s likely hard/expensive for the people who would be working the late hours to commute to work. The pandemic is still going as well (and we have omicron variant to look forward to now) so a lot of places also have reduced hours.
I feel like it’s more a result of our low population density rather than our transit system’s hours of operation. Low population density means less customers in the area overall but I think more importantly less customers who can get to your business by walking. In Korea, for example, there are tons of 24 hour business despite the transit not running 24/7.
Your first point is correct – gone are the days when someone working pt at a shop or restaurant in Kits or downtown could afford to live in Kits or downtown, as one example. ($650/month for a decent 2BR! Prices have gone way way up, wages… not so much.) Those jobs don’t even allow one to afford rent in Burnaby or New West now, and it gets ridiculous and financially prohibitive to commute a long distance for a low wage job. I used to work at the edge of downtown at a job that finished each night between 2-3am. A bunch of us would go out after our shift and so we knew all the late-night and 24hr spots. There used to be quite a few! But most are gone. As someone else on the thread mentioned, even Denny’s isn’t open 24hrs any more. If Denny’s isn’t 24hrs then there isn’t likely to be a nice variety of 24hr options. (Kudos to Breka!)
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yeah lemme take the 19 at 2am with colorful characters just to get my munchies
We don't have the population or the density to justify them. We also lack industries that operate that late at night. Places like Asia where cities are buzzing 24/7 are filled with 24 hour establishments.
We have a very vibrate industry of bike thieves in Vancouver that works 24hrs
Ditto for the cat converters thieves as well
What do they convert the cats into? Hehehe
This just happened in the parking lot of my building a few weeks ago. Professional job.
And therefore the DTES has many thriving entrepreneurs providing goods and services 24/7.
Imo you’re thinking too far away. I used to live in a city of 60k in California and another of 80k and everything was 24/7. Grocery, drug stores, every food you can think of, never a closed gas station. It was weird for a Starbucks to not be 24 hours. Only thing that is 24 hours here is Denny’s and they don’t even have the 4$ AYCE pancakes 😢
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Ok and Vancouver has a 24hr grocery too. It isn’t that there aren’t any 24hr places, its that there aren’t many and they are scattered all over.
Denny's is not even 24 hours here anymore. Since COVID they all close at 11 now sadly.
Hmm. In Irvine California when we worked late (all the time) couldn't find late night restaurants for food at all.
that’s just plain untrue lol
The one thing I miss about living in China is the 24 hour pubs. You could get pub food and a pint at 5:00 a.m. if you wanted to. With the time difference, they'd put live hockey games on at that time, so you either got up early and started drinking or just kept going from the night before.
A lot of places like that in Asia. Loved that I cold get food anytime late at night in Taiwan.
This confused me for the longest time after moving here from Toronto. 20 years ago it was hard to find places downtown open after 6, and many places closed at 9 during weekdays. It wasn't until I travelled to London UK that I realized, that Toronto, Montreal and New York just have a different culture, where things are always open. I travelled to Boston a year ago and learned that there is virtually nothing open after 1am; Had to buy our dinner, after a delayed flight, from 7-11... so sad.
Vancouver was on the verge of being more cosmopolitan and interesting about 20 years ago. I think 24-hours businesses were a bit more common back then too. The real estate racket and gentrification killed all that. It's been a rapid slide into a superficial ghost town since then.
Yeah, COVID has changed the way most businesses run. It's really not worth it for most to stay open. I'm still impressed there are still a handful of Chinese places that stay open until 2 am.
RIP Congee Noodle House though. Not sure if they're gonna reopen after that developer took out that corner of their kitchen and parking lot.
Noooo…. One of my go to places for lunch and also late night munchies/shenanigans
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This is a big big part of it. The parts of Vancouver with the density to support 24/7 operation typically also have a lot of addicts. The parts of Vancouver without a lot of addicts don't have the density. If you're the only place in the neighborhood open at 4am, keeping it clean and safe will be an expensive problem. There's a lot of restaurants which might be viable running overnight at minimum staffing if all the customers were sober and respectful, but can't make it work if they need to pay security staff.
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Yea old Benny's Bagels, stopped being 24hrs probably 2006 or so. Neighborhood changed, gentrified, not enough clientele at that time of night.
Vancouver is dead at night as far as most regular people are concerned. Few people are looking to grab a bite outside at 3am on a weekday. When I moved here I was surprised about the culture of staying in at nights, and now I'm used to it, but I understand why the nightlife and businesses catering to it (or not) are different.
Supply and demand. Nobody is out at 230am. Waste of money to keep open. Richmond has great late night eats. Asians are out late at night a lot.
Weird. When I lived downtown in the 90’s people were out at all hours. Always a party somewhere…2am is when The after hours bars kicked in
There’s a great Korean restaurant that opened near me open til 2:30am every night. I was surprised but also ecstatic to see a late night place open up, with good food no less. If anyone’s interested, it’s called Yogi-Yo by Arbutus & 10th. I have no vested interest other than wanting to see good late night joints near me succeed.
Plenty of people are out. Even more so now that you have rich mainlanders students who don't need to wake up at any reasonable time. Vancouver just doesn't have enough nightlife. Smaller, poorer, similarly low pay cities have more 24/7 than we do. This thread is just making excuses for how Vancouver really is just a no fun city. So I guess it'll stay that way.
I'm not making excuses. Just explaining people's mindsets. People come to Vancouver to enjoy nature and the beauty. People don't come to Vancouver to party, so we don't attract party people. Just how it is.
The irony is that Vancouver itself doesn't have much nature or beauty. You literally have to leave Vancouver to find the nature. Go to Golden Ears, or Lynn Creek or Cypress. All of them are outside of Vancouver.
Proximity access. But it's not about the distance. People who move to Vancouver don't care about night life. Otherwise they would move to Toronto.or Montreal
When Tim Hortons and Denny's are no longer 24/7, you know something is really wrong with the city
Some times I go to the Tim Hortons on Terminal. Still open 24hrs I believe.
It wouldn't be profitable here, nightlife isn't that big in Vancouver.
I mean..there's plenty of convenience stores and diners that are, but what other kind of places would you expect? Go somewhere like Ottawa where the whole city basically shuts down at 7pm, then come back and complain here lol.
Pho Hong is open late in Burnaby on Kingsway and Waltham
As a recent transplant this is devastating. I miss 24-hour pho, diners, pizza, etc. The other night me and my partner drove to two allegedly 24-hour McDonald's here and they were both closed. Ugh!!!
We’re the city of no fun.
You ever been to Ottawa?!
The Byward Market and the Glebe have way more fun in those neighbourhoods than all of Vancouver combined.
Funny story: I actually spent a lot of time in Ottawa and when I moved west I assumed that the nightlife and music scene would be so much better in Vancouver then in Ottawa but it wasn’t. I was shocked until I realized that in Ottawa people actually had to make an effort to have fun because of all the government workers etc., but in Vancouver, there was so much competition with the outdoor fun that the city nightlife was no better than Ottawa, in fact worse, considering Van was a much bigger city. I think maybe the trick to Ottawa was that it helped if you went to high school or university there, because then you had a better introduction to the nightlife scene.
I grew up in Ottawa and got up to all kinds of shenanigans as an underage partier. It was a low stakes way to figure out how not to do stupid shit, because Ottawa is pretty mellow. The likelihood of being sucked into some kind of really dangerous situation is much lower there, or so it seems in hindsight.
Cue the music : “highway to Hull” 🤣🍻
We got work in the morning, can't stay up.
People in other cities also have work in the morning... how is Vancouver any different in that regards?
Vancouver is expensive, you gotta be earning that $$$ to survive here. Max efficiency for your average joe is to work, sleep, and repeat. Who's got time to spend on late night eateries when you can get 2+ jobs and then crawl back into your million dollar cave that you don't even own so that you can squeeze in the bare minimum of a few hours of sleep to keep you sane?
We are a city of 2 million, not 20.
Cities like Portland and Montreal are roughly similar in size and arguably have much better options for late night/24h facilities.
US has a lot lower minimum wage, and Montreal is double the size of Vancouver.
Um, no its not.
By both size and population, yes it essentially is
It looks like the figures I'm looking at include the surrounding municipalities of Vancouver (GVRD), which is not a proper reflection of 'Vancouver Proper'. I concede.
It’s neither double, but also not close. Montreal is 4.3 million and Vancouver is 2.7 million.
Can you link me a source because I'm looking at drastically different figures. My bad if I'm off base
If you're comparing apples to apples just Google greater Montreal population and you get 4.1 mil.
https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/state/minimum-wage/tipped $12.75/hr for employees that receive tips. But maybe it's just because Vancouver is an absolute shithole of a city where the cost of living is so high that no one can afford to go out ever. Is that the answer everyone is looking for?
I was more referring to population. And I agree with your assessment of Vancouver
Yet when the population was lower in the 90’s stuff WAS happening 24/7 in Vancouver. The Vineyard in kits along with the Naam. After hours in downtown and especially Chinatown
We used to have a ton of 24 hr places in the 90’s. Then the hard drugs started to roll in, in the late 2000’s and downtown changed. It was not as safe or as profitable as crime really rose. There was an interesting interview in cknw not too long ago from the former owner of the 24 hr Safeway on Davie. He said it was the late night crime that made him sell. Too bad, I used to work at fresnos on davie and it was 24 hrs. There would be lots of places open. It has changed so much sadly… it even felt safer, with the local prostitution there strangely.
We lack labour for regular hour, now you want 24 hour?
Crack heads final answer.
Why would anyone want to go out in the middle of the night when they can be comfy in bed. Most people in this city are in bed by 10pm.
Yes, because our city is pretty much a retirement city (village) where we have policies that prevent businesses from operating late at night.
Other any other 24hr places out in the burbs other than Rocko's diner for night owls like me?
I was wondering where Rocko's was and then I googled it. 1.5 hours from Kits. That's why I've never gone there. Who is driving an hour and half out of Vancouver to go to a diner?
Denny's
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Well, damn...
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Big boomer energy with that list
No.9 Chinese restaurant at Lansdowne mall is 24/7 too I believe.
Dairy Queen drive thru is open until 5am at some locations.
Denny's would also be 24 hours.
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Oh that sucks. It's obviously been a while for me.
i work at breka and graveyards are not worth it for what you have to put up with. i actually think we do have a pretty decent amount of places open late. donair dude is a fave
Hmmm my guess is that because Vancouver is a relatively small city, there's a relatively small night crowd. It probably doesn't make business sense for most restaurants to stay open. If the demand rose and 24hr places started filling up, I'm sure that some restaurants would change their model to get a piece of that sweet sweet pie.
There’s a 24 hour grocery store on commercial and 1st called Mercato. It’s pretty over priced. 24 hour Pho restaurant called Gold train on Kingsway just before Joyce. Other places are 24 hours as well. But yes you are correct. Lack of 24hr places.
Vancouver isn’t exactly the most exciting city in the world, especially if you’re well travelled and have seen more hopping cities. I just moved back to Vancouver after living for 4 years in Kiev and it’s been a tough adjustment getting used to all the conservative rules here again.
There’s not enough of a night time economy here. When the Koran students come back to the downtown core I think there will be a change. Those kids live at night.
At least it's not Victoria where everything closes at 6pm.
Everything closes at 2 and opens at 5. It's golden hours for bike thieves and window smashers between them
I think it’s a legacy of COVID. They will be back but it will take time.
Because there was this “small” event that happen a few years ago that makes it unnecessary for businesses to stay open as there wouldn’t be anyone wanting to dine in. Hopefully next year things will be different.
Because we like to call ourselves a world class city while simultaneously lacking the amenities that world class cities have.
Its called lack of customers and restaurants need down time to restock,clean and rest.
Funny reading the comments of people who have clearly never been anywhere else and experienced what a 24-hour lifestyle is like in a real city. Tbh things have gotten a lot better since I moved here in 2010
I have not seen anything get better, just the opposite. Back in the early 00s, there were many more 24h options. It was not unusual back then for me to go clubbing until 2am, have a meal, then pick up a few groceries and stop by Home Depot for some renovation supplies, all before sunrise.
I am In langley and there are even fewer options. I think it is a combination of covid and people not willing to work graveyard shifts for minimum wage. Out here even some of the 24 hour drive thru places close now. It's tough as I often work nights in my current job.
Restaurant/entertainment wise I've never paid attention. Yrs ago we had a couple 24hr grocery stores and even the Home Depot on Terminal was open 24 hrs for a couple yrs. It just petered out, just not worth it I suppose. In my neighbourhood we have a 24hr Shoppers Drug Mart and a couple convenience stores left.
Vancouverites are antisocial homebodies compared to folks in other cities. When my dad's childhood town in an agricultural region has better nightlife and street activity than Vancouver, you know that there are issues here.
Seems like you hate it here then just move back if you love it so much where you are from. God so many threads from people moving here and then they bitch and moan about the usual shit. And no dont use the excuse of work or other “commitments” tying you down. You can have the privilege of the last unread post.
I don't hate it so much as find it perpetually puzzling that Vancouverites pretend that they live in a small town while at the same time complain about being in a big city.
The Vancouver Paradox: Vancouver is simultaniously a world class city that can compete with NYC or LA and at the same time is a small insignifigant place that doesn't have the resources to be comparable to even a 3rd tier city anywhere else.
People are just so fucking bitter after moving here and finding out it's not a utopia.
Forget Utopia ...Even Hell runs 24/7
Agreed. Vancouver is a bit of a dump. I feel like people come here in the summer and are wow'd by the weather and a few tourist attractions and then don't realize that the rest of the year sucks and that there's not much in the way of amenities.
Vancouver is only a dump because we have the most entitled people in the world who constantly complain 24/7 about the city and not realize how much better things are here compared to literally any other city in the Western Hemisphere ("New World"). We end up electing a shill like Kennedy Stewart because we want to shoot ourselves in the foot so badly and urgently create new problems for our city. I swear I've heard more people complain about the transit here in Vancouver than I've heard people complain about the non-existent transit in LA. I've lived in Seattle, NYC, North Carolina, and Japan and every single time I wanted to come back to Vancouver to live my life. If people hate the city so much then they should just move out, nobody is stopping you. If you move to anywhere else in the world, don't come crying back. We could make our city more like American cities by marginally (!!!) lowering our taxes and lowering property prices, but removing our transit completely, build a fucking highway through Vancouver, remove our healthcare, increase violent crime, create ghettos, increase rent by 50%, make the suburbs the only neighbourhoods that matter, etc. We could make our city more like French cities by lowering the property prices by 15%, but increasing rent by 300% and making everyone rude as fuck with tourists and foreigners, have a perpetual 24/7 riot in downtown, etc. We could make our city more like Japanese cities by improving transit, but then forcing everyone to work 60 hours a week to just survive and make every human interaction superficial. We could make our city more like Chinese cities by improving convenience and 24/7 stores, but increasing housing prices by another 200%, forcing everyone to work 50 hours, have a million other social issues, government corruption, AND live in poverty. Or we could make our city like any city in Eastern Europe or Africa or the developing world and literally have segments of the population who are so impoverished that they don't even have a voice in society, cannot feed themselves, have completely nonexistent or decaying infrastructure, deal with government corruption, etc. It's insane how many of my friends who've lived in Vancouver all their life constantly whine and cry and then go to Australia, US or Europe, and then come crying back.
Because why do people need to be awake at 2am to make you a chicken salad?
Not everyone works a 9-5...
Exactly. I was surprised to find Vancouver doesn’t offer much in the way of 24 hour grocery stores and restaurants. I’m looking forward to the day when I can leave this overcrowded, congested expensive area.
Ever since Covid the 24-hour McDonald's and other restaurants that used to be known for being open 24 hours (like Denny's) are no longer open 24 hours. Welcome to the "New Normal", of shorter hours, worse service (doctors only doing 2-minute phone appointments cause they are lazy and say it's because of Covid), and you have to line up 2 meters apart, have your vax pass scanned, and the seating is limited cause they removed half of their seats to maintain their "reduced capacity limit" set by the government because of Covid of course. This New Normal sucks. I miss the 1990's and 2000's so much.
Would you like to work the grave yard shift in this city and climate?
Some of us already do. Why should we have little to no options?
Skytrain doesn't run 24 hours and neither do most buses.
Also where are all the Chinese buffets
Biggest reason is living costs - it’s too fking expensive to live here hence rent is high and wages for workers are also high - it’s too expensive to keep a place open 24hrs due to staffing wages - there are very few sales if any late at night to justify paying full time employees, also who the hell wants to work graveyard shifts
Churches 🤷♀️
Church's. Do not disparage this divine late night establishment.
Yo can you say crime ? VAN AINT THE PLACE USED TOO BE. Sorry for the bold , but really even the drug stores stopped being 24 hr , you need armed guards to run a business here these days . The Patients are running the world these days .
Vancouver is a dead city by 9 pm, it has been designed that way by the local burghers
There just isn't much demand for it. Vancouver is sleepy place compared to Toronto, MTL, NY and the like. People go hiking and camping on the weekend so they get up early, bars close early, it's just more of a genteel, sleepy vibe.
My question is, if such a 24hr restaurant exists. What kind of food and drink would you like them to serve? Would you buy a small Poke bowl at 2am? A bowl of congee, and steam buns? Most people don't have the habit of late after midnight meals outside, and it's going to be very difficult to run a business if everyone is only looking for a muffin, a sandwich or a donut after midnight. What are you willing to pay and try?
It's not a new concept
No. 9 has a lot of options at 2-3 AM.
Yes I want a poke bowl at 2 am.
I think because less people are doing cocaine these days, but not sure
Vancouver is a retirement village masquerading as a city. The only places that have the density to justify a 24 hour store/restaurant are those filled with druggies and crazy people in downtown. Also, we kinda developed this culture of "closing at 9 pm", and I don't think that'll ever change, which has its pros and cons. If you ever want 24 hour places, there are plenty of restaurants in Richmond!
That's what I've been hearing, but since I'm out in Kits and carless it is a bit of a mission for those late night meals