[Senko]

I was just grabbing some lunch and only a few 24 hour mcdonalds were open (2am) and it got me thinking between non-human races, nightshift people (nurses, doctors, police, runners grin), the expected unpaid overtime, things like the sleep regulator that means you only need 3 hours sleep is Shadowrun like our world or is it 24 hour in nature. I'm talking about the cities (seattle, new york, Tokyo, London, Madrid, Sydney) here do they largely shut down after about 9pm except for clubs then again after 2/3 am except for a few 24 hours mcstuffers or are they open 24/7 so at 3am on a cold christmas morning you can pop into a store and look for a new dress or a present for the aunt who showed up unexpectedly?

[Whiskeyjack]

New York is basically a 24-hour city. So is L.A. I would expect more places are.

[Senko]

Interesting.

[Jack_Spade]

A dystopian ultra capitalist society that has drones and semi-intelligent machines as well as easily exploited minorities/majorities without real protection - you bet your ass that you can get a burger at McHughs at any time you want...

[Senko]

Didn't really mean 24 hour fast food was thinking more normal stores. Clothing, video store equivilants, electronics stores, trideo cinema's or whatever equivilants exist in the shadowrun world.

[Jack_Spade]

Same answer.  The burger was meant as pars pro toto

[Senko]

Good to know thanks.

[Mirikon]

The answer, of course, is more complex than a simple yes/no. Yes, in any major sprawl you can likely find someplace open. But quality and quantity will vary depending on the time of day. Most places will close down after a certain point, especially if they aren't in manufacturing or cater specifically to a 24 hour clientele. Stuffer shacks and McHughs? Certainly. Macys or high end department stores? Almost certainly not. Can you find someplace to buy a change of clothes at 3AM? Sure. But those places are going to focus on nightlife, or they're going to be skeezy places. You won't be buying a sarariman's suit, but you may be able to find the best in club wear or anything a streetwalker might wear. Just as an example.

Of course, this is for legit 'brick and mortar' places. Criminal outfits have their own schedules and ordering from a Matrix site is easily done at any time. But walking into a shop to look around? Probably best to assume normal business hours.

[Senko]

Ah it was things like Macy's I was thinking about you can always catch a matrix movie, order from a persona store just wondering if its real world shopping hours or 24 hour most stores are open all day just different people behind the counter hours in the major city areas. Suburban neighbourhoods, small towns and the like wouldn't have it but a major city like Seattle I was curious if it might.

[Sendaz]

I don't see the high end stuff being open 24 hours just because hey probably cater to certain niches of the market and from a sales standpoint it doesn't make sense to have the lights on and standing staff for what few sales that might happen at 3 a.m. in the morning.  They will stay open well into the evening as working stiffs need some shopping time after work.
(something I wish more of the UK would understand, being an expat here it's still surprising how much shuts down at 5 to 5:30 in a lot of places but then those same shops whine how nobody shops with them.. duhhhh..  Though they are getting better, if slowly... )

Kong-Mart?  Sure and you can find a bit of everything you might need there so that would be 24 hours.

Neo-Tiffany's? strictly 9 am to 8 pm

[farothel]

I assume that some of the very high end places will open at night if you ask in advance (and if you are a very good customer and/or very rich).  in my opinion about Shadowrun, for the excentric rich (just another word for crazy if you have a lot of money ) everything is possible.

[Zweiblumen]

Also remember that you can shop on the Matrix.  Armand's might be closed after 8pm, but if you need a Globetrotter Vest at 3AM, hope into the matrix site walk down the aisles and pick out the color size you want.  Shipping direct via delivery-bot in 90 minutes or less!  _{Delivery and service fees extra, thank you for shopping at Armand's.} 

Note: you won't be able to get a custom fit suit this way, but anything off the shelf should be available.

[Senko]

Ah but you don't have the human interaction which is the only place some of us get it.

The flip side of that Sendaz is that even today we have high end exclusive shops that don't even let you in if your trying to come of the street you need a recommendation and an appointment to look at their wares. In which case the hours don't really matter.

[Sendaz]

The flip side of that Sendaz is that even today we have high end exclusive shops that don't even let you in if your trying to come of the street you need a recommendation and an appointment to look at their wares. In which case the hours don't really matter.

Oookkkay, if you want to keep changing the goal posts I suppose...

or are they open 24/7 so at 3am on a cold christmas morning you can pop into a store and look for a new dress or a present for the aunt who showed up unexpectedly?

Didn't really mean 24 hour fast food was thinking more normal stores. Clothing, video store equivilants, electronics stores, trideo cinema's or whatever equivilants exist in the shadowrun world.

So you went from asking if there were shops open 24/7 for normal slobs (remember you originally referred to non-humans, nightshift folk like doctors/nurses and cops) where said folk can just pop into any old time for basics to you changing the goal post to hyperexclusive shops  that require A) recommendation to even be seen and B) an appointment in advance which probably means their wares are not off the rack or common. Something like this is probably are NOT part of a national chain in itself though it might be a subsidiary of a corporate chain.

At that point you are comparing apples and oranges, because there will be such shops that cater exlusively to the Jetset megarich, but those will be few and far between, and that assumes you even know where to look for them since they likely do not advertise seeing as you have to be recommended to even be seen so why pay for an ad?

So if you want some one of a kind shop for your runner to drop in on, handwave it in and move on, but don't expect the majority of shops to run on that model.
Most shops have overhead and bean counting accountants to deal with, so they will focus their sale times to reap maximum sales for the workforce they have.
Plus as others have mentioned, with the ability to go online, a shop can have 1 or 2 bodies packing Matrix orders overnight for a drone dispatch straight to you, but will rarely keep the entire place open and fully staffed at the witching hour unless they cover a wide range of inventory so as to justify the night time presence like Kong-Mart can.

Edit: Now there will be regions where the reverse applies.  When I was in Egypt many regular shops are shut during the day because a) most everyone is at work or sleeping cause so much work is at night, so there is nobody to go buying stuff and b) it's damn hot. 
There are some shops covering the basics/essentials and of course things for the tourists like fast food and cheap knock-offs, but it's the nighttime when the locals are able to go out and shop that things come alive.
The outdoor market opens and shops for the locals open their shutters and it literally runs til near dawn before shutting down before it starts to heat up again.

[Senko]

Not changing the goal posts just pointing out even during the daytime some exlusive shops only staff if they're expecting a client. We wandered off onto a tangent there as they aren't the ones I'm interested in just general department stores, movie cinema's etc check my first post last sentence. Now the reason I'm wondering is while yes these shops are going to run for a profit I'm not sure that said profit wouldn't be made by them in a major city where  for 12,000 nuyen you can get a sleep regulator that lets you get by on 3 hours sleep meaning unlike our world instead of an 8 hour sleep cycle you've got a 3 hour one starting at maybe 1-3 am depending on when you need to get up and not counting shift workers, metahumans, the fact your employee then turns around and spends what you paid them at company stores etc.

Take me for example I current leave for work at 4am and get home a little after 5 (which I do working an 8 hour day from 06:30 to 15:00, long commute with packed trains on both those trips and our higher management is making noises about moving large amounts of staff to night shift for regular maintainence) and then puts in an unpaid 2-3 hours overtime for the "standard" 60 hour week shadowrun seems to expect it may well be worth it to have their shops open later. Regular shopping ones until about 9-10 at night say. Not necessarily a full 24 hour shift but you will be open at the hours most workers are able to do their shopping i.e. after they get home from work but before they can finally kick back and relax.

I'm just wondering if its like here where as you said shop has a few staff stacking drones for the "sleep" hours or whether it might have shifted with the years, changes in conditions and gone to a situation where a major city (not suburban or country) never really shuts down. Not every store will be open at any given time but in the major commerical districts you can find something open for clothes, weapons, cars, computers because you will have people up and about at that time as their standard day.