Philly Diner shortens late-night hours

Philly Diner and the University recently agreed to shorten the restaurant's hours of operation in response to a shooting that occurred outside the diner last month.

The diner - located in a University-owned building at 3901 Walnut St. - will close at 2 a.m. on weekends and 1 a.m. on weeknights, according to Penn's executive director of real estate Ed Datz.

He said the decision to close the diner earlier on weekends was in response to not only last month's shooting outside the diner, but also a fatal shooting that occurred inside the diner in December 2005.

Last month's shooting, which occurred in the early morning on Feb. 28, involved no Penn students, and no injuries were reported.

"The University and the diner's owners are both concerned about the safety and well-being of the customers at the diner based on those events and have agreed to modify the hours of operation," Datz wrote.

The owners of Philly Diner declined to comment for this story.

Many students expressed frustration with Philly Diner's modified hours of operation.

In response to this recent announcement, Wharton sophomore Christian Lunoe formed the Facebook group, "Save Philly Diner." The group contains a link to an online petition to support keeping Philly Diner open all night.

The petition currently has over 60 signatures, most of which are anonymous.

Although Lunoe maintains that Philly Diner created the petition, Datz wrote in an e-mail that both Penn and the diner's owners agreed on the changes to the restaurant's hours.

Naming possible motivations for employees to create a petition, Lunoe said they may have been concerned about decreased hours. "One of the waiters had to quit because he didn't get enough hours," he said.

College sophomore Christian Grados, who was at the diner when last month's shooting occurred, wrote in an e-mail that he doesn't think shortening Philly Diner's hours will affect security on campus.

"If anything it will just serve as a diversion to hide the real problem that transcends the four walls of the diner and exists around all the campus," he wrote.

Grados said he signed the petition because he feels that without Philly Diner, "the student environment at Penn would not be the same."

But College sophomore and chairman of the Undergraduate Assembly's Sustainability, Safety and Facilities Committee Alec Webley said he supports this change as long as the University "makes sure there are opportunities for students to eat lots of food."

"We need places where we can hang out that are safe and have food that students really want to eat," he added.

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