The Dining Car ends 24-hour service after 57 years

A 3 a.m. plate of bacon and eggs, or maybe a hunk of Jewish apple cake or walnut apple pie, will become a thing of the past at the Dining Car, as the Northeast Philadelphia diner ends its 24-hour service at 9 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 13.

New hours at the diner (8826 Frankford Ave.) will be 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. daily, starting Monday, Aug. 14.

"It's no big mystery. It's been coming for about 10 years," said owner Nancy Morozin, a daughter of Joe Morozin, who opened it next door as the Torresdale Diner in 1960. (Neighborhood borders are fluid on that stretch of Frankford Avenue just north of Pennypack Park; it's Upper Holmesburg to most.)

Aside from Christmas, it's been open 24 hours a day since. Overnight business is "steady, but I put a lot of resources into that shift just to keep it open for tradition," she said. "There's no profit."

There became a tipping point, she said. "As I get older, I have more irons in the fire," she said. She is the chair of the Greater Northeast Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce and is active in Les Dames d'Escoffier International, the food society.

The few overnight employees – including the manager, cousin Paul "Pepe" Morozin – have been offered other shifts.

"Some of them said to me, 'It's going to be nice to see daylight again,'" she said. "We want to put resources into where they're needed."