CLEVELAND — Restaurants that are open for 24 hours are slowly dwindling across the state and right here in town. The Ohio Restaurant Hospitality Alliance said staffing shortages and inflation play big roles in many closures of these types of restaurants.
While the rest of the world sleeps, the 24 hour restaurant, My Friends, on Detroit Avenue is wide awake, greeting, and serving warm meals for anyone who walks through their doors at early hours.
“We have customers coming from the east side, the west side, Akron just all around,” said hostess Angela Thomas.
Thomas said staying open 24 hours is rooted in the restaurant's DNA for the last 40 years.
“There are people that work third shift, it’s always nice to go somewhere and get decent food when you’re out with your friends and your family,” Thomas said. “We have truck travelers and it’s always nice to get something besides McDonalds.”
For RTA bus driver Carla Hill, all she wanted was a warm meal after her long 10-hour shift which ended at 2 a.m.
“I came straight in here because I have been seeing this place all day, so I was thinking about meatloaf all day, so I decided on breakfast,” Hill said.
Hill often drives the Detroit Avenue bus route, even sometimes taking My Friends employees to work. She stops by after her shift often.
“They know me, and I know it’s good food here and they take good care of me,” said Hill.
Restaurants that are open for 24 hours remain an anchor for many who work the third shift or often travel. President and CEO of the Ohio Restaurant Hospitality Alliance, John Barker, said despite many closings across the state, the need for some to stay open is important.
“The trends have moved, and this really got accelerated during the pandemic to more delivery, more, pick up, more take out,” Barker said. “It got accelerated by about three or four times the normal rate during the pandemic.”
Barker said lack of staff and inflation are making it harder for 24-hour restaurants to operate around the clock beyond the pandemic.
“The pressure on restaurants is immense and I've been in this business over 30 years, I've not seen it like this in those 30 years with this kind of pressure,” Barker said. “Mainly because the cost of food coming in the back of the house, as we call it, is up 25% over two and a half years.”
Though the entire restaurant business is hurting right now, Barker is optimistic it’s going to improve.
“So those restaurants that are going to remain open 24 hours are going to be in very specific locations, you know, being off of busy exits, and maybe where there's a hospital and places where there would be traffic naturally coming to those restaurants,” Barker said.
While 24-hour restaurants might be few and far between now, Thomas said My Friends plans on having that customer base covered for another 40 years.
“If you want great food at three or four in the morning, we are always here,” Thomas said.
