Looking for a 24-Hour Restaurant in Southern Maine? This Might Be Your Best Bet

You've probably at one time in your life sat down at 2 a.m. in a restaurant to get a bite to eat. Sure, it may have been when you were younger after a night out on the town with friends and had a bit to drink, but we've all had that craving in the middle of the night. This was the beauty of the 24-hour restaurants throughout southern Maine.

Since the COVID-19 pandemic hit, 24-hour restaurants have seemed to become a relic of the not-that-distant past. It seems that the combination of people staying at home during the peak of COVID and a shortage of workers available in the middle of the night have caused many of our go-to late-night restaurants to close overnight or disappear altogether.

Denny's was one of those 24-hour restaurants that became a victim, with Portland and Westbrook locations closing and the remaining locations in Auburn and Augusta closing at midnight. The Bangor location now closes at 8 p.m. In fact, many restaurants have shortened their hours significantly.

Your choices for a bite to eat 24 hours a day in Southern Maine are very slim, but one restaurant chain has stepped up to fill the void.

Several Burger King's in southern Maine are open 24 hours, and a few of them recently started to do so after they had their locations modernized, including bringing back their classic logo used from 1969 to 1999.

In fact, just this week I made a late-night stop at the newly modernized Burger King in Windham and grabbed a couple of cheeseburgers while the McDonald's across the street was dark.

If you're looking for something to satisfy that hunger when everyone else is sleeping, here's a list of the Burger King restaurants that are open 24 hours in southern Maine.

• Alfred Road, Biddeford
• Main Street, Gorham
• Gorham Road, South Portland
• Forest Avenue, Portland
• Riverside Street, Portland
• Roosevelt Trail, Windham
• Lisbon Street, Lewiston
• All service plazas on the Maine Turnpike