Lucky Penny Tee

Geary & Masonic, the artery that never sleeps … and there, the Lucky Penny, glowing like a stubborn bulb at 3 a.m. … MUNI drivers wolfing eggs before the first run … Chronicle guys in ink-stained jackets reading the very paper they’d just tossed on your porch … Giants highlights on the TV nobody turned down … Afternoons brought the regulars—locals with their “usual” (always said with a nod), students pretending to study, the occasional drunk philosophising over fries … Nights? A parade: waitresses on auto-pilot, hash browns drowning in ketchup, heartbreak plated up next to bacon … The Penny wasn’t polish, it was pulse … a diner that kept the city alive when the rest of it was too tired, too broke, or too hungover to try … Timeless, fluorescent, eternal … San Francisco in a coffee mug.