Where Is the 24-Hour Grocery Store?
- RoadTour.Net Team
- 23 hours ago
- 3 min read
Remember when you could walk into a grocery store at 1:00 a.m., 3:00 a.m., or 5:00 a.m. and actually buy groceries? We do. Before the pandemic, 24-hour grocery stores were common in many American cities. Walmart, Meijer, Kroger and other major retailers operated numerous locations around the clock. If you worked overnight, got off work late, had an early-morning schedule, were traveling, or simply needed something unexpectedly, there was usually somewhere to go. Then the pandemic happened. We understood why 24-hour operations disappeared. Stores were dealing with staffing shortages, supply-chain problems, cleaning requirements, unpredictable customer traffic and an unprecedented disruption to normal business.
But the pandemic is over. So we have a simple question: Where is the 24-hour grocery store?
What are we waiting for? Walmart was once practically synonymous with being open 24 hours. Many Meijer locations also provided around-the-clock shopping. Kroger operated numerous 24-hour stores as well.
Today, finding a major grocery store open at 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning can be surprisingly difficult. Why?
The emergency circumstances that originally helped justify eliminating 24-hour operations are long behind us. Yet the reduced hours have largely remained. From a customer's perspective, it feels like retailers discovered during the pandemic that they could reduce their operating hours — and simply never brought them back.
That may be convenient for the companies, but it isn't necessarily convenient for their customers. Not everyone lives on a normal daytime schedule.
There seems to be an assumption that everyone can conveniently shop during the daytime or early evening.
That simply isn't reality. Millions of Americans work second shift, third shift and other unconventional schedules. Nurses, police officers, firefighters, factory employees, truck drivers, warehouse workers, airport employees, hospitality workers, people traveling, and countless others may be working while everyone else is doing their grocery shopping. Then there are travelers. Someone arriving in a city late at night may need groceries, toiletries, medicine, diapers, bottled water or other basic necessities. A family can discover at midnight that it needs something for the next morning. A 24-hour grocery store wasn't merely a novelty. It provided a useful service.
Retailers constantly talk about improving the customer experience. Well, accessibility is part of the customer experience. Closing at 10:00 or 11:00 p.m. might make operations easier, but it removes an option customers had for years. When companies reduce a service and never restore it, customers have every right to ask why.
And no, we haven't forgotten. We remember pulling into Walmart or Meijer in the middle of the night and knowing the doors would be open. We remember being able to make a late-night grocery run without checking closing times first. That convenience mattered.
Bring back the 24 hour store. We're not suggesting that every grocery store in America needs to operate around the clock. Obviously, some locations may not generate enough overnight business to justify it.
But major metropolitan areas should have options. Walmart, Meijer, Kroger and other large retailers could designate certain high-volume locations as 24-hour stores. Even having one strategically located 24-hour supermarket in a market would provide an important service for customers who don't live according to a traditional schedule. If staffing is the concern, companies have had years to develop new staffing models. If overnight demand is the concern, test selected locations and see what happens. But simply accepting that the 24-hour grocery store disappeared during the pandemic and should never return isn't good enough.
Customers lost a valuable convenience, and years later, it still hasn't been restored. Walmart, Meijer, Kroger — where are the 24-hour stores? You may have moved on from 24-hour shopping. Your customers have not.
Not having 24-hour stores is unacceptable. Fix this.
