Where to Grab a Late Night Bite

Fortunately, Fairfield County residents have more late-night dining choices than comedian Buddy Hackett's two: take it or leave it.

That said, wee-hour eateries are not considered to be the area's strong suit. So it's interesting to see how many places there are to grab a bite well after dark all around the county.

"Norwalk is definitely king of the late night scene in Fairfield County, as well as Stamford if you don't mind going a bit further south," says food guru Amy Kundrat, proprietor of one of the area's gastronomic go-to guides on the web, CT Bites.

Pam Dufour, owner and operator of another great online area food resource, Fairfield County After Dark, says that late-night eating just isn't a big priority for most residents.

"Just based on the analytics on my website, it's not one of the biggest things that people are looking at. It's not huge," she says.

Dufour's site does have a section specifically devoted to late night eating.

"The late night section is the place to go for me if I need to find something to eat late at night," she says. "It's good to be able to go to a website and find that out pretty quickly."

The county used to have a number of places that were open much later, but many pared their hours back when they realized the extra time didn't mean extra customers.

"We do get a good amount of people that come in after 10 p.m., that's late enough for where we are here in Wilton," says Demetri Papanikolaou, one of the owners of the well-known Route 7 staple Orem's Diner. "There's not much traffic on the road after that, anyway...when we first moved to our current location, we were open much later. But we found between midnight and 2 a.m. that there just wasn't that much more traffic. So we decided to scale back [on our hours]."

Tony Pertesis, manager of Andros Diner in Fairfield, says that being open 24 hours actually benefits them. He admits that could be because Andros is one of only a handful of eateries open that late so people already know to go there. He also says they get a fair amount of traffic after the Fairfield bar scene lets out.

"This one's the hot spot after all the clubs on the weekends," Pertesis says. "It gets crazy in here...everybody comes here and eats. The weeknights, obviously, are a little less. But people still come in late to do their homework, meet up with friends."

So where to go when the munchies kick in around or after midnight?

We asked around for resident recommendations and we've included our list below. But please feel free to include your favorites and thoughts in the comments section below, especially if we've missed anything!

Darien

• — Dining room closes at 11pm, drive-thru closes at midnight.
• — 6am - 10pm

Fairfield

• — 24 hours

Greenwich

• — Kitchen: Mon - Thu, 11:45am - 10pm; Fri - Sat, 11:45am - 11pm; Sun, 11:45 - 9pm
• — Sun - Thu, 6am - 2am; Fri, Sat, 24 hours

New Canaan

• — 6am-10pm

Norwalk

• — Dessert and drinks: Sat, 9:30pm - midnight
• — Sun, Mon, 9am - 11pm; Tue - Thu, 10am - 12am Fri - Sat, 11am - 1am

Ridgefield

• — Mon - Sat, Open from 11am to 10pm; Sun, Closed
• — Kitchen 11:30 am - 10:00 pm
• — Mon - Sun, 7am - midnight

Shelton

•  — Sun - Thu, 6am - midnight; Fri, Sat, 6am - 1am
• — 24 hours

Southport

• Athena Diner — 24 hours

Stamford

•  — 24 hours
•  — 24 hours
• at 1103 E. Main St. (just off of Exit 9 on I-95) — Drive-through open 24 hours
•  — Sun - Thu, 9:30am - 1am; Fri, Sat, 9:30am - 3am

Wilton

• — 6 a.m. - midnight
  

Weston/Redding/Easton

• — Mon, Tue, 3pm - close (around 1am); Wed, Thu, noon - close (around 1am); Fri, Sat, noon - 2am; Sun, noon - close (around 10pm - midnight). Sunday brunch buffet, noon - 4pm
• — Mon - Thu 11:30am - 1am; Fri, Sat, 11:30am - 2am; Sun, noon - 1am

Westport

• — 24 hours