diff --git a/JoshHeaps.Net/Services/Implementations/BlogService.cs b/JoshHeaps.Net/Services/Implementations/BlogService.cs
index a6ecad2..61e4e79 100644
--- a/JoshHeaps.Net/Services/Implementations/BlogService.cs
+++ b/JoshHeaps.Net/Services/Implementations/BlogService.cs
@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
-using System.Collections.Concurrent;
+using System.Collections.Concurrent;
 using System.Text.Json;
 using JoshHeaps.Net.Models;
 using JoshHeaps.Net.Services.Interfaces;
@@ -10,6 +10,7 @@ public class BlogService : IBlogService
     private readonly HttpClient _httpClient;
     private readonly ILogger<BlogService> _logger;
     private readonly TimeSpan _cacheTtl = TimeSpan.FromMinutes(5);
+    private readonly TimeSpan _staleGrace = TimeSpan.FromHours(1);
 
     private readonly ConcurrentDictionary<string, CacheEntry> _cache = new();
 
@@ -65,7 +66,9 @@ public class BlogService : IBlogService
 
     private async Task<T?> GetCachedAsync<T>(string key, Func<Task<T?>> factory) where T : class
     {
-        if (_cache.TryGetValue(key, out var entry) && entry.ExpiresAt > DateTime.UtcNow)
+        _cache.TryGetValue(key, out var entry);
+
+        if (entry is not null && entry.ExpiresAt > DateTime.UtcNow)
             return (T?)entry.Value;
 
         var result = await factory();
@@ -73,15 +76,26 @@ public class BlogService : IBlogService
         if (result is not null)
         {
             _cache[key] = new CacheEntry(result, DateTime.UtcNow.Add(_cacheTtl));
+            return result;
         }
-        else if (entry is not null)
+
+        return entry is null ? null : ServeStale<T>(key, entry);
+    }
+
+    // Stale entries are dropped once the grace window closes so that a dead API fails the same
+    // way for every key. Serving them indefinitely let a cached post list render next to 404s on
+    // the posts themselves, which reads as a site bug rather than an outage.
+    private T? ServeStale<T>(string key, CacheEntry entry) where T : class
+    {
+        if (entry.ExpiresAt.Add(_staleGrace) > DateTime.UtcNow)
         {
-            // API unreachable — serve stale cache
-            _logger.LogWarning("Serving stale cache for key {Key}", key);
+            _logger.LogWarning("Blog API unreachable, serving stale cache for key {Key}", key);
             return (T?)entry.Value;
         }
 
-        return result;
+        _cache.TryRemove(key, out _);
+        _logger.LogError("Blog API unreachable for over {StaleGrace}, dropping stale cache for key {Key}", _staleGrace, key);
+        return null;
     }
 
     public void ClearCache()