Staying up late in a 24-hour restaurant

You never know who you might meet in the wee hours of an all-night dinner.

This is a Navy member celebrating his last night in New York before deployment with friends. There’s a tipsy rock singer doing Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” dance moves perfectly. Enter a 60-year-old intensive care nurse and her husband sitting at the table having a romantic dinner after a long night of clubbing.

A chaotic dynamic reigns in the 24-hour diner — a haven where patrons of all ages, origins and tastes are welcome to bump elbows over burgers and pancakes. Unlike a restaurant that has traditional hours, a diner changes as the night progresses and different types of guests arrive. It can be whatever they want – its menu, mood and playlist often change by the hour.

All-night eateries are a recognizable New York institution. But in the city that supposedly never sleeps, they’re disappearing as costs rise, food delivery grows, and many citizens stick to the earlier-to-bed schedules they developed during the pandemic. According to Yelp, the city lost 13 percent of its more than 500 24-hour restaurants from February 2020 to January 2024, including favorites like the Neptune Diner in Astoria, Queens, and the Arch Diner near Canarsie Pier in Brooklyn.

Amid all those closings, at least one place has been reborn: Kellogg’s Diner, a Williamsburg, Brooklyn landmark dating back to 1928. It returned in September after a half-year hiatus, with a new owner, a revamped interior, a slightly fancier menu from chef Jackie Carnesi — and two months later and 24-hour service.

“It was a niche that needed to be filled,” Ms. Carnesi said. “Post-pandemic, the number of 24-hour restaurants that have ceased to exist has left a great hole in the heart of New York.”

To better appreciate the charms of the restaurant that never closes, I spent Friday night at Kellogg’s, dining non-stop from 8pm to 8am, seeing the restaurant through each of its transformations and meeting a motley mix of customers. Surprisingly, I wasn’t scrutinized by the staff for my hours-long stay – a reassuring reminder that no other place will welcome you as unconditionally as an all-night restaurant.

Dinner crowd

8 a.m. to 11 p.m

With its soft booths, string lights, glass pie cases and neon signs glowing out front, Kellogg’s looks every inch the archetypal diner. But the first few hours there felt like any other popular prime-time restaurant. A crowd was waiting for the tables at the entrance. Groups of friends shared trays of nachos and bottles of orange wine chilled in buckets. Solo guests lingered over slices of pecan pie at the bar.

Sitting on one of those bar stools was Megan Donovan, who works in advertising sales and lives on the Upper East Side. She rushed in around 9 p.m., starving after her friend’s birthday party. She had never been to a Kellogg’s, but she liked how classic it looked from the outside.

“There’s something universal about it,” said Ms. Donovan, 27, sandwich in hand. “I can get a BLT at any restaurant and I know it’s going to be good.”

She complained that fast food chains seem to be the only late-night options these days. “I like Taco Bell a lot,” she said, but “it’s nice to come and have the restaurant experience.”

A few chairs down, Khoi Vinh, who works in luxury sales and lives in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn, came to look for some rings he had lost while eating at Kellogg’s a week earlier.

“I don’t like to eat my fingers with my rings,” he said, “so I put them on the table and left them there.” He worried they were gone forever, but not long after ordering his chicken steak, the bartender showed up with rings—all of them.

“It’s just a special place,” said Mr. Vinh, 40, putting them on most of his fingers. “I feel in a community with these people.”

Happy revelers

11 pm to 2 am

Martinis and natural wines gave way to tequila and vodka sodas around 11. A new group of guests arrived either to get ready for a night out or to hold a party.

Among them was Brandon Reyes, who will be deployed to Italy on Monday for his next assignment in the Navy. Four friends arrived in New York from across the country to see him off, and he took them to his childhood favorite: Kellogg’s.

“It’s built into my culture,” said Mr. Reyes, 23, who grew up nearby. “It’s part of my family. My grandmother has been coming here for years.”

He didn’t mind that the menu now included a $95 rib-eye steak or that the furniture had been upgraded. He was relieved that the place was still open late. Without it, he said, “it loses compatibility with the people who live here.”

His friends asked the bartender to pour them a drink of his choice. “I don’t know what I just drank,” Mr. Reyes said. “But it was delicious.”

At 1 a.m., Kellogg’s switches to a late-night menu that includes fewer items but some extras, like a Cuban sandwich and masa cornmeal pancakes. About this time I saw the manager swallowing a small bottle of olive oil.

Joshua Ackley, lead singer of the Brooklyn rock band Dead Betties, walked in after celebrating his 44th birthday on the Lower East Side. “I was playing clubs in New York,” he said, “and we’d say, ‘If we lose touch, let’s all have proof of life at Kellogg between 5 and 7 in the morning.'”

He missed the old version of the diner. “It was more accommodating to people who didn’t have a lot of money,” he said. “This is like $37,” he added, pointing to his chicken-fried steak (which was actually $24). “I wouldn’t take it back in the day.”

Suddenly the song “Thriller” was heard and Mr. Ackley went on to perform most of the famous dance, solo, in front of the dining hall. Few customers seemed to notice. He only bumped into the server once.

A wild bunch

2 to 5 in the morning

At 2 a.m., the playlist suddenly changed from Top 40 hits to 1970s pop — Abba, the Go-Go’s, Boney M. The room got louder and louder as people came in from bars and clubs. One woman threw up on her table, then wrapped herself in scarves and was escorted out of the restaurant by her friend, looking like a celebrity trying to avoid the paparazzi. Our server shrugged, wiped up the mess and said he wished her well.

Fresh from dancing at a nearby Afrobeats club, a group of recent Stanford grads showed up at Kellogg’s around 3 a.m. in search of solid food to wash down all the drinks they’d consumed.

“I love pancakes,” said Gabby Barratt, 22, a health researcher. “The apartments are too small. Everyone needs somewhere else.”

But not all 20-somethings were in the audience. Maria Pino, 60, an intensive care nurse, came with her husband after a date night dancing at a club.

“Hungry,” Ms. Pino said of her wife, who lived nearby and did not want to be named. (There would be no drinks for the night, as state law prohibits restaurants from serving alcohol from 4 a.m. to 8 a.m.)

Ms. Pino loves the eccentric people she meets at all-night dinners, and even witnessed a spontaneous wedding at one of them 10 years ago. She hoped the city would never lose those places.

“This is not Arizona, this is not Virginia, this is New York,” she said. “New York is 24 hours. You need a place to go.”

Strays and early risers

5 to 8 in the morning

The curtains remained drawn during the night. But around 6am, sunlight slowly crept through the slats, reminding me how long I’d been there.

Just before that, the lighting in the restaurant softened to a yellowish glow, the server starting his shift dropped the breakfast menu on our table and the playlist switched to jazz. The host said it was his way of signaling to the drunks that they needed to leave or calm down. The cleaning crew swept away maps, photos and bottle caps from the night before.

Rachel Prucha and Lo Logsdon, both bartenders in Manhattan, had recently finished their shifts and were talking over enchiladas and espresso martinis. “This is our dinner,” said Ms. Prucha, 30. “And breakfast.”

During the pandemic, catering employees had no place to eat after work, Mr. Logsdon (29) said. He didn’t want to order delivery and pay all the various fees. “It’s so nice to come back to this place,” he said.

There were also guests who were just starting their days, like DY Kim, a project manager at Google, who had just returned from South Korea the day before and was engrossed in a plate of pancakes and an omelette. He woke up to a frosty break and craved breakfast, so he drove from his home in downtown Brooklyn to Kellogg’s—one of the few places open this early.

“We don’t have diners in Korea,” said Mr. Kim, 35. “I was looking forward to an American breakfast.”

And is there a more American place to eat than a 24-hour diner?