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Business & Tech

Hungry on Christmas? You're (Almost) On Your Own

Nearly every restaurant, bar, supermarket and convenience store in Berkley is closed for the holiday.

On Thanksgiving, ,  and several convenience stores were open for those who ran out of ingredients, burned their only package of crescent rolls or encountered a few too many hungry bellies and needed to rush out for supplies. On Christmas, however, Berkley and Huntington Woods residents are pretty much out of luck (well, if they want to stay in the Patch, that is).

It's almost like this Saturday is some sort of holy day or something. Oh ... wait.

Kidding aside, it's true: Nearly every business that sells any kind of groceries in Berkley and Huntington Woods will be closed Saturday in observance of Christmas. Hiller's, closed. Westborn, closed. , closed.  convenience store on 12 Mile, closed.  on Coolidge, closed. 

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Same goes for most of the restaurants and pizza places. , closed. , closed. , closed. , closed.

As Mark Koon, whose wife, Cinda Koon, owns , explained: "We're kind of traditional. We go to church, so it just doesn't make sense to open on Christmas."

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Sam Gulli, owner of , located inside the Sunoco station at 12 Mile and Coolidge, feels the same way.

"Growing up going to Catholic school, we were pretty much taught that opening a business on Christmas was a sin," Gulli said. "But the same nuns who told us that also hit us with rulers, so who knows?"

All right, for some the day is holy, for others it's just tradition, and for still more, it's pretty much the one day a year they get to close down for an entire 24 hours. Take  on 12 Mile, for instance. That's a place known to be open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. But starting at 9 p.m. Christmas Eve, the store will close for an entire day, not opening again until 10 p.m. Christmas Day.

So, that means that there is someplace open to get food on Christmas Day — at least after 10 p.m. But 7-Eleven isn't the only place. There are a few spots to grab some munchies and even full meals and drinks on the day of Jesus' birth.

I'll list those in a second, but first, the winner of the Open for Food the Earliest on Christmas Day in Berkley Award is ...  on 12 Mile in downtown Berkley.

"We're open Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, New Year's Eve, New Year's Day," rattled off Mo Ng, co-owner with her husband. The carryout-only Chinese restaurant is open starting at 1 p.m. Christmas, and it will be open until 9 p.m. (Same on New Year's Day, in fact.)

"People come in for really big orders," Ng said. "They pick it up and take it home to eat family style." Sounds pretty good to me ... .

But if you find yourself in need of something with a little more kick on Christmas, wait until the evening, and you'll find that (7 p.m.-2 a.m.) and (6 p.m.-2 a.m.) will be open and serving alcohol and food.

If all you need is some milk, butter, pop, beer, wine, etc., the station on 12 Mile (7 a.m.-7 p.m.) and shop on the west side of Woodward just north of 11 Mile (noon until TBD) will be open to save the day.

There's one place that's guaranteed to be open every single hour, every single day of the year, however. "We'll be open," says motorcycle officer Lou Tanghe.

For all the addresses and phone numbers of these and all other Berkley businesses, feel free to click on the links above or check out the Patch directory.

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