Norms Restaurants is a chain of diner-style restaurants in Southern California

Southern California

Southern California is a megaregion, or megapolitan area, in the southern area of the U.S. state of California. Large urban areas include Greater Los Angeles and Greater San Diego. The urban area stretches along the coast from Ventura through the Southland and Inland Empire to San Diego...

. The chain was founded in 1949 and its restaurants are open 24 hours a day, seven days a week. They advertise their hours with the line "We never close." There are currently 18 locations in Los Angeles, Orange

Orange County, California

Orange County is a county in the U.S. state of California. Its county seat is Santa Ana. As of the 2010 census, its population was 3,010,232, up from 2,846,293 at the 2000 census, making it the third most populous county in California, behind Los Angeles County and San Diego County...

 and Riverside counties.

The first Norms opened on Sunset Boulevard in 1949. The oldest surviving Norms opened on La Cienega Boulevard in 1957, featuring a distinctive angular and brightly colored style that came to be known as Googie architecture

Googie architecture

Googie architecture is a form of modern architecture, a subdivision of futurist architecture influenced by car culture and the Space and Atomic Ages....

. Key characteristics include concrete walls, large glass windows, jutting roof, and a neon marquee. Many locations of Norms restaurants, including the 1957 La Cienega Boulevard location, were designed by the firm of Armet & Davis

Armet & Davis

Armet Davis Newlove Architects, formerly known as Armet & Davis, is a California based architectural firm known for working in the Googie architecture style that marks many distinctive coffee shops and eateries in Southern California. The firm designed Pann's, the first Norms Restaurant, the...

.

In popular culture

• Referred to in the intro to Tom Waits
  Tom Waits
  Thomas Alan "Tom" Waits is an American singer-songwriter, composer, and actor. Waits has a distinctive voice, described by critic Daniel Durchholz as sounding "like it was soaked in a vat of bourbon, left hanging in the smokehouse for a few months, and then taken outside and run over with a car."...
  
  ' "Eggs and Sausage" off of Nighthawks at the Diner
  Nighthawks at the Diner
  Nighthawks at the Diner is a 1975 album by Tom Waits, released on Asylum Records. The title was inspired by Edward Hopper's 1942 painting Nighthawks....
  
  .

• The location of a popular hangout of the characters of the TNT show Men of a Certain Age
  Men of a Certain Age
  Men of a Certain Age is an American comedy-drama television series, which premiered on TNT on December 7, 2009. The hour-long program stars Ray Romano, Andre Braugher and Scott Bakula as three best friends in their late forties dealing with the realities of middle age. The show ran for two years,...
  
  .

• Depicted in the 1962 painting "Norms La Cienega on Fire" by Edward Ruscha
  Edward Ruscha
  Edward Joseph Ruscha IV is an American artist associated with the Pop art movement. He has worked in the media of painting, printmaking, drawing, photography, and film. Ruscha lives and works in Culver City, California...
  
  .