GREEN BAY (NBC 26) — Day or night, at Blackstone Family Restaurant the open sign is always on.
They're Green Bay's only locally-owned 24-hour diner, open at all hours since 1908, even pre-dating the Packers.
It's the long hours and endless options, you can ask the chef to whip you up just about anything, that have kept Blackstone around for so long.
And the people that have devoted their lives to this place are doing it in their own backyard.
Bob Freeman has only owned the Blackstone since last July, but he's been here for more than three decades in various roles working for his sister who had previously owned the diner since 1989.
"I grew up in this neighborhood," says Freeman. "Six blocks away."
Running this place has allowed him see the area change in ways others don't.
"We used to have people that would come in in the middle of the night getting done with work in groups. And you don't see that anymore," says Freeman.
"We're still well-known, but I guess the economy has changed. The whole world has really changed."
"A lot of small businesses have shut down during the last ten, fifteen years and we've made it through all of this. And I can see our community, I can see a lot of the older people they can't afford a lot. The whole neighborhood, this whole city is... they're more at home now and they're not out and about as much."
For Bob, the new customers, the old regulars and the ones who don't come in anymore, it's a snap shot of Green Bay around him.
"We don't have as many people out at bar time, the late night, as we used to," says Freeman. "We used to have people come in from the bars, they got done at ten, eleven o'clock and they went out to the bars, now they're coming to eat and everybody's here having a good time."
"It's still like that but not like it used to be."
Still after all these years, the late night hours serve the community in a way no one can match, cementing the Blackstone as a core piece of Green Bay.
"There's a lot of people that we know by name or if you're a cook they walk in [and] you know what they eat," says Freeman. "You can start making it right away because they get the same thing all the time."
"This is my social life. It's talking to the customers and the people because I'm here a lot. I feel like they're all part of the family."
"I have a lot of pride in the Blackstone because it's so old. It's historic in Green Bay."
