24 Hours

24 hours shops and restaurants are quite popular and common in the Asian market. More 24 hours McDonald's can be seen in London, which could be seen as 'fast food after clubbing' in the central district or for the late diners around the city. However, back in Hong Kong and Japan, one of the major reasons is purely not targeting late diners, but is a solution to teens who hang around street corners dealing drugs and smoking at night. From an article I read while I was in HK, the service is really solving this problem and working really well according to statistics and social workers. On another note, it is also attracting wifi gamers (especially playing the game 'Monster Hunter') who uses the free wifi service to have regular meetings late at night. Something which you probably wouldn't see in UK, as people like them are seen as weirdos and geeky.

I'm not actually sure if it would have the same effect in the UK, especially probably doesn't apply to UK as McDonald's are not in every street corner, unlike in Hong Kong. And also with Teens in the UK are getting more and more obese I doubt that alone will encourage more 24 hours branches.

Also, there seems to be another crowd coming into McDonald's late at night:

No longer just a restaurant for people to munch a burger, McDonald's in Hong Kong has recently become a shelter for some down on their luck, a local paper reported this week.

People who cannot afford high rents or who want to save a few dollars on late-night transportation have opted to sleep in some of the fast food restaurants which operate around the clock, the mass-market Apple Daily said Monday.

A picture taken by the newspaper at 4 a.m. in a downtown McDonald's in Tsim Sha Tsui, a popular tourist district, showed at least eight men resting on their arms and occupying a table each.

The paper called these people "McRefugees" — a term imported from Japan, where a growing number of working poor have been spending the night at McDonald's.

A man the paper identified only by his surname, Lo, was among some 10 people sleeping recently in one of the McDonald's in Hong Kong.

Source from:

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2007-05-01-mcrefugees_N.htm

More info at:

http://www.psfk.com/2008/05/gamers-gather-at-24-hour-mcdonalds-in-hong-kong.html