Dining Car to bring back 24-hour service

The Dining Car's 24-hour service will return — at least on weekends.

Nancy Morozin, who owns the landmark Northeast Philadelphia diner, said she was bombarded by requests to reconsider the recent move to keep shorter hours, ending 57 years of round-the-clock service except for Christmas. New hours at the diner (8826 Frankford Ave.) — 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. daily — started Monday, Aug. 14.

Morozin now says the diner will stay open round the clock from 7 a.m. Thursday to 10 p.m. Sunday, effective Thursday, Aug. 24. Hours on Monday to Wednesday will be 7 a.m. to 10 p.m.

"I feel like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz," Morozin said today, after posting her new plan on Facebook.

"I got texts, I got letters, I got phone calls, and people showed up in person," Morozin, daughter of founder Joe Morozin, said. "The tide turner was when someone wrote a letter to my father's house. That made me sad. He's an old diner man. He doesn't like to see people upset." She said she had advised her father of her former plan, which had been in the works for a while.

She considers the new hours a compromise. The beginning of the week is not profitable for her and her staff, traditionally, "so the weekends are really where they're making it."

Staff, she said, was eager to return to the old schedule — even the night cooks..

Joe Morozin opened the Dining Car 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.

Overnight business is "steady," Nancy Morozin said, "but I put a lot of resources into that shift just to keep it open for tradition. There's no profit."