Loyal patrons of local late-night restaurants can rest assured that their favorite late-night dives will continue to serve their favorite late-night eats, despite the popularity of Rick's Diner in the West-Edens Link.
When Rick's first opened last fall, some questioned the viability of a 24-hour diner on Duke's campus. But as the weeks flew by, the West Campus eatery had a sufficiently consistent stream of customers to keep the doors open all night, every night, throughout the academic year.
The proximity of the diner, coupled with students' ability to buy midnight hash browns on food points, certainly had an impact on some of the local businesses competing to satisfy students' late-night cravings. Some restaurants have felt the diner's impact more severly than have others, but representatives of the most popular late-night food sources for Duke students all said they will continue to make their services available well into the night.
"Our night business was pretty much cut in half," said Michael Farabee, general manager of Jimmy John's on Ninth Street. "I'm going to do advertising like I always do, and try to get as many students as I can. If I can't get enough, I'll have to take matters into my own hands, maybe by expanding into Research Triangle Park."
Farabee said there are no plans to cut back on delivery to the University. With the sandwich shop's delivery hours running from 11 a.m. to 4 a.m., business overall is still sound enough to continue delivering on food points.
Other businesses said they had seen less drastic dips in business over the academic year. Buck Dickerson, a co-owner of Honey's Restaurant on Guess Road, said he noticed a slight decrease in Duke student business on Friday and Saturday nights.
"We were really fortunate. At the same time as we had some decrease in student business, Pan Pan, the all-night diner near us, closed down in February," Dickerson said. "We picked up a considerable amount of non-student customers, so we've been keeping on keeping on."
Leo Rodriguez, a manager at Cosmic Cantina on Perry Street, said late-night business did not drop off significantly after Rick's Diner opened. Instead, he pointed to the discontinuance of wholesale business with Duke University Hospital as the most significant factor contributing to the restaurant's slight business drop over the last year.
The least concerned about competition from Rick's seemed to be Waffle House on Hillsborough Road. Although manager Dorothy Davidson said the restaurant's business has dropped off slightly in the last year, she credited the economy at large rather than a dearth of Duke student late-night business.
Many of the restaurants stressed that they still get their fair share of Duke students, but at different times of the day or week than they did before. Few have offered any special promotions in an effort to reclaim some of their late-night student customers; in general, it is business as usual.
"When you give [students] a place like Rick's Diner where they have phone jacks and internet connections and give them a place that's comfortable and close by, so they can walk over there in their pajamas - you can't compete with that," Farabee said.
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