I believe 24 hour diners were the venue of choice. Possibly, that was just
a NYC/Long Island type of thing, however. But, I can remember going to
diners late at night in Brooklyn and Queens and out on the Island at all
hours of the night after whatever we were doing had ceased to be exciting.
What I do remember (quite clearly) is that every one of these diners looked
pretty much the same (with slightly different configurations) and all
seemed to have the same unhappy waitress. They all came with wonderful
names as well: "The Ram's Horn", "The Blue Dolphin", "The Golden Coach",
etc... so inevitably there would be a point in the evening where someone
would say "Wanna hit the blue dolphin?" or something equivalent (sometimes
as simple as "Ram's Horn?" and then everyone would groan and shake their
head, but we'd still be there within an hour or so).
-Mike