The story of Lucky Wong and his legendary one-man diner in San Diego

Episode 16: Lucky Wong Transcript 

Julia Dixon Evans: Lucky's Breakfast in North Park, also known as Lucky's Golden Phenix, opened in 1975. Over the decades, North Park morphed and changed all around it, but Lucky's remained a constant. A special gathering place. A couple of U-shaped counters and a griddle. A simple little restaurant unlike any other. A one-man show.

Dan Anderson: He was working alone.

Colleen Haynes: He took the orders. He never wrote them down.

Anderson: Your order was mostly right, but whatever you got was always good.

Douglas Saboe: He was the cook. He was the waitress. He was the busboy.

Lesley Fong: Lucky was truly one of a kind.

Evans: Lucky Wong, the man behind Lucky's Breakfast, had been serving food to North Park six days a week for nearly 50 years. He was going strong well into his 80s, when in January of 2022, an ultra-modern phenomenon shook his old-school diner's world. He went viral on TikTok — like, very viral.

The TikTok, set to the trendy song of the week, shows an uncle taking his niece to breakfast at Lucky's. Inside, there are a few Chinese paintings on the wall, bonsai trees and an old Coke machine, and four items on the menu — nothing over nine bucks. Lucky himself pours orange juice with a shaky hand while chatting with a smiling customer. He cooks, he serves. There's maybe a dozen other guests in the diner. At the end, Lucky gives the little girl a fortune cookie. And the TikTok takes off.

Saboe: And I looked at that TikTok and realized, oh my gosh, 10 million people are seeing this TikTok.

Anderson: There was a line out the door and all the locals were annoyed 'cause we couldn't get into our seat.

Saboe: And there must have been 50 people standing outside waiting to get in line. I thought, they are gonna kill this poor man.

Gail Higgins: So I came in, I was like, what is this? And, we said, we gotta go help him.

Saboe: Out of nowhere, a few friends came over to help Lucky. They had to run to Costco and get extra food.

Anderson: We would go serve coffee to everybody. I'd go back, I'd grab the pot, walk the counters and top everybody up 'cause Mr. Lucky was busy.

Higgins: I went in and I was serving tables and Davy was washing dishes and Lucky was back there cooking. It was great.

Evans: Customers and friends, regulars and those who worked at nearby businesses sprung into action and started spontaneously volunteering at the restaurant just to help out. It seems like something that simply should not happen in today's world. What is it about a place that would make someone do that? What is it about a person that might inspire that degree of dedication from his customers?

Haynes: He was a good-hearted man.

Ana Christina: He truly radiated joy and I loved the way I felt after going there.

Evans: This is a story about how a million tiny, friendly, ordinary acts built up over the course of 50 years can create a legend — about how Lucky made North Park feel like a community. But now, the inevitable and unthinkable has finally happened: The constant force and fixture of Lucky and his diner are gone.

Saboe: As with the rest of North Park, I guess, everything must change and so there it does.

Evans: Saying farewell to Lucky means more than losing a person — it's losing a piece of community. There will never be another place like his, but how do we hold tight to what it gave us and what he taught us?

Christina: Lucky taught me that true joy is found in bringing joy to others and I think that if all of us were like Lucky, you would only find peace and joy in this world.

Evans: From KPBS Public Media, this is The Finest, a podcast about the people, art and movements redefining culture in San Diego. I'm Julia Dixon Evans.

[Theme Music]

Evans: Right around the time we started working on The Finest in December 2024, we were scrolling through the excellent FoodSanDiego subreddit. Two top posts from that month caught our eye: one, announcing Lucky's was closing, and another a couple weeks later, announcing that Lucky Wong had died.

Comments poured in. They called him a legend and a lovely human being. "We need more Luckys in this world," one said. There were plenty of people who just loved the affordable food. There were countless funny and heartwarming anecdotes. Lucky told one commenter that he rode to the U.S. on a tsunami and another said that as a little girl was leaving the restaurant she yelled, "I love you, Lucky!"

We reached out to people who knew Lucky, like Matt Lyons of Tribute Pizza across the street and Lucky's daughter June Wong, who connected us to Lucky's huge network of regulars who had practically become family.

Even after closing time, Lucky would talk on the phone with customers, exchange gifts and even throw parties for them. And they all wanted to talk to us about Lucky. Before long, we had gathered so many stories and memories about this man and his extraordinary diner.

So what was it that made Lucky's diner so special?  It certainly was neither Michelin-star food nor Instagramable decor.

August Wang: From the moment you step inside the diner, you can hear the beautiful classical Chinese music.

Matt Lyons: He had this awesome snake counter like from the '70s and a vintage Coke machine, a little tiny kitchen.

Anderson: It was all about being here, drinking a lot of coffee and talking, taking your time.

Christina: It was like traveling back in time. Nobody was on their phone.

Anderson: You'd come in at a certain time and there'd be the same three, five, seven people that would come in regularly either every day or every Wednesday.

Ruth Kramer: You don't go in any restaurants and people talk to you and smile, but everybody was talking to each other. It was just a different atmosphere than what we find in our life today.

Lyons: Lucky's was cash only. And if you forgot cash, he'd say, get me next time.

Wong: The prices on the menu were between three and five bucks for many years.

Anderson: It was a simple menu, too: eggs, bisquick and bread and bacon and sausage.

Haynes: It was about $4 for a full plate, and I always got the Denver omelet.

Thursday Garreau: Hardy, greasy, salty breakfast stuff. And the portions were always huge, like he would just pile up the plates.

Christina: And if you became a regular, before he even approached you he would start cooking your meal.

Anderson: It's like a home cooked meal, always delicious.

Evans: What kept popping up in these memories wasn't just Lucky's food or the environment in his diner, it was the man himself.

Jerry Rickett: We went there and it was sort of like seeing a family member. I think he really cared about people, that's just who he was.

Kramer: And you thought, gosh, I don't know how he remembers me and remembers what I told him last time. He was pretty amazing. And he could talk about every subject.

Haynes: The news and politics.

Fong: Pop culture.

Haynes: The Olympics.

Kramer: Baseball games, education. He was up on everything.

Lyons: Lucky was so funny. He was so sharp. Like, dude, you're in your 80s and English is your third language. Just a top-notch burner.

Anderson: The grandpa would ask for coffee and he'd say, you want tequila in it? And the guy's eyes would light up.

Garreau: He said he had swam all the way here from China, and so we needed to grow up strong like him.

 Omid Golchehreh: When I told him that the food was delicious,  he responded with, my food's not good, you're just hungry.

Christina: He especially enjoyed chatting with kids and giving bacon to dogs.

Hannah Sweet: My children always called him Uncle Lucky.

Kramer: Everybody thought they were special to him. I don't know how he did it. It wasn't real obvious, but you knew he cared about you.

Evans: Everyone felt special at Lucky's because everyone was special to Lucky. All the regulars we spoke with had their own unique connection to him. They were friends.

Anderson: His celebration of life there was a couple hundred people and I'm sure everybody had a story.

Anthony Wallace: Was there a good amount of people like you, like regulars there?

Anderson: Yeah, I think that was the majority of it. But the family might have been a quarter or less of that.

Evans: One of those customer friendships was with Jerry Rickett. Lucky nicknamed him by his home state.

Rickett: We live in southeastern Kentucky, a little town called Corbin, Kentucky. When we came in the door, he always hollered, Kentucky. We enjoyed it. He was just a delightful man.

Evans: About 20 years ago, Jerry and his family took a vacation to San Diego. They had no relatives or friends here, they just wanted to escape the cold and explore the city.

Rickett: And we found Lucky's on the internet and how he was a one-man operation. And it intrigued us and my family and I went there. We stayed about a week and went there twice. And we were impressed with Lucky. We talked to other customers. Some of them when Lucky was cooking would get up and serve the coffee. We were intrigued by that. Once we met Lucky, we had to go back and see him.

Evans: They kept coming back to see Lucky again and again until it became a regular tradition — a 2,000 mile trip for a $5 omelet.

Rickett: We go out to San Diego every other Christmas. Probably the last five or six years, Lucky would insist that we pick him up in the evening and he would insist on buying supper for all of us, which was most generous of him. And that was the time we really got to know him, and just share some of his stories. He would call us and wish us Merry Christmas, and he would say, this is Lucky. We were lucky to know Lucky.

Wallace: How did you feel when you got the news that he had passed away?

Rickett: I felt like a family member had passed and it was… it was sad.

Evans: Colleen Haynes is another regular with a remarkable story of friendship with Lucky. She's a local pet boarder and dog walker. She'd stop by Lucky's everyday with the dogs, and he'd shower them in bacon. But her Lucky story goes far deeper than a worktime acquaintance.

Haynes: I have had the pleasure of knowing Lucky in his diner for over 20 years now. I met him years ago when I was visiting before I moved here. I would run into him at the local farmers market where we would shop together and eat tacos together from the local vendors.

And probably one of the fondest memories I've had of him was years ago my son came to town to visit and I took him to Lucky's. I knew it would be right up his alley and they hit it off and he would give him a hard time, and they really got along. Well, shortly after his last visit, my son passed away. And unfortunately, it was very difficult and I couldn't go into Lucky's for a while because it was too hard for me.

And I remember seeing Lucky at the farmers market about eight months afterwards, and he asked me, why don't you come in anymore? And I said, because that's the last place I ate with my son before he died. And he was very sad to learn of his death and said, when the time is right, you'll come in and it'll be healing for both of us.

Well, I think it took me about two years before I could finally go back in to see Lucky and enjoy one of his meals. And when I walked in there, he dropped everything, gave me a hug and we both just teared up and it was very special and healing at the same time.

And afterwards, anytime I came in, I always got served first, which was like I was the VIP at Lucky's. So I dearly miss him, that's for sure.

Evans: Ruth Kramer was one of Lucky's older regulars.

Kramer: A friend of ours told us about his restaurant. My sister and I went there to check it out. And it was such a friendly, warm, inviting place that we went back many, many times for many years. It was a little drive and we're both almost Lucky's age, so we didn't make too many trips to far away places for us anymore, but we always managed to go there 'cause we missed him when we didn't go.

Anthony: How often would you go about?

Kramer: Oh, we went about maybe every three weeks. We always had pancakes and sausage and coffee. And when he saw us, he just had a big smile on his face and he went right back to the kitchen area and started cooking our breakfast 'cause he knew what we wanted and he'd bring it right out. And after COVID, he was so glad to see us back 'cause we're, like I said, elderly. And he said, I'm glad you didn't get COVID. And so we're just really friends through his restaurant, but when I was there, I felt like I was going to see a family friend or member.

So we just loved him. We miss him and think, oh no, we wish we could go there for breakfast tomorrow. You know, I'm still sad about it.

Evans: And like many regulars, Ruth has grown closer with Lucky's daughter June since he passed away.

Kramer: His daughter's much like him, I think. And June has really been a rock. We've actually been texting almost every day.

Wallace: Really?

Kramer: Uh-huh. She sends me pictures of flowers and sayings to help you feel better about losing someone and so forth 'cause she knew I was sad. So we're helping each other and that's what Lucky did.

Evans: Lucky was such a rare kind of person and his diner was a rare kind of place, so we wanted to know about the circumstances that made this special man and restaurant. Anthony sat down with June to learn about Lucky's origin story.

Wong: My dad was… it's interesting. He's very extroverted and social, but he was also very private 'cause he's a traditional Chinese, so he was also reserved too.

Evans: He didn't always share many details about his life, especially before he came to the U.S. — and he was notorious for telling tall tales, like swimming to the U.S. from China. But some parts of his true biography are fuzzy, like his birth year. June says it's 1934, which would have made him 90 when he died. Though some media reports said he was 86.

Wong: He was born in China in Taishan, a city in Guangdong. It's in southern China. It's a very old-fashioned culture where he's from because where he grew up, it was like a village. You have to be able to tough it out.

He came over here when he was 14 years old. The reason why he came here is because the Japanese invaded China. A lot of Chinese came over here at that time.

Evans: Lucky arrived in San Diego in the late 1940s.

Wong: So he lived downtown. Back then, they had a little Chinatown on 3rd and Island, and that's where he lived. He did go to San Diego High School and back then it was called Grey Castle. And then he spent about a year, I think a year, at San Diego State.

Evans: Lucky loved talking Aztec sports and wearing SDSU gear, but his life from college until his early 40s is also a little unknown.

Wong: This is before I was born, so it's kind of hard for me to fill the gaps unless someone shares.

Evans: June knows he was interested in engineering and worked briefly in that field, but ...

Wong: … he decided that wasn't for him, and then he decided to go into the restaurant business.

Evans: He trained at a popular Chinese restaurant at the time. And in 1975, when June was a baby and Lucky was in his early 40s, he opened his diner on the corner of Grim Avenue and North Park Way. The family lived in North Park — walking distance from the restaurant.

Wong: He used to work full-time and my mom was helping him out for like 30 years. Wake up at 5 a.m. and come home around 7 p.m. for dinner.

Evans: Young June would go in before school for breakfast and return after school.

Wong: I grew up there. When I was eight years old is when I first started washing dishes.

Evans: Back then Lucky's was open for lunch too, serving burgers and Chinese American food. Cutting back to just serving breakfast was Lucky's idea of partial retirement.

North Park was different back then, too. Lucky lived through several iterations of the neighborhood as it evolved over the years.

Wong: They had actually had nice shops around that time, around the 70s. But then at some point, I think it was the 80s and 90s, they had a lot of 99 Cents stores. It was run down at some point. I would come in and it'll sometimes be empty in the afternoons. The neighborhood was really run down.

Evans: But by the 2000s, North Park was growing fast. In the last few decades, it's become a lot more expensive there. Businesses and residents have been priced out. In the past 15 years, rent in the neighborhood has nearly doubled. So Lucky was a constant among a flurry of changes. And one thing he was always insistent on: His diner had to be a place everyone could afford.

Wong: He kept prices low to help people out too because he knows himself when he goes out, he wants to afford to eat too.

Evans: The restaurant business is famously brutal. Less than half of new restaurants survive five years. Only a third make it 10 years. Lucky's stayed open for half a century. And he certainly did not do it with a ruthless focus on profits. He refused to cross the $10 line. By the end, the most expensive menu item was $9.99. In fact, many times it almost seemed like he didn't want to be paid at all. It was like the classic argument about who picks up the check, but in this case it was with the restaurant itself.

Kramer: A full breakfast like eggs and hash browns and bacon and everything else, and we'd say, what do we owe you? He'd say, $5.

We'd try to give him a tip and he wouldn't, he would put it back. And finally he said, no, no, you don't pay. You don't pay. We'd just run out the door as fast as we could go, which wasn't very fast, but we made it.

Haynes: He didn't like big tips, that's for sure. He would try and give me my money back. He was a very generous and giving man. I noticed throughout the years, he often fed homeless people and let people go that couldn't afford the meal, even though the meal was always dirt cheap.

Garreau: We'd just sat down, here's three more pancakes and two more eggs and everything, a hash brown. We'd be like, no, no, no, I didn't order this. And he's like, I know you didn't.

Evans: Lucky loved his North Park neighbors. Gail Higgins owns "The Girl Can't Help It," a vintage shop right next door to the diner.

Higgins: I mean, we were lucky to be next door to Lucky. We loved him.

Wallace: How often did you see him?

Higgins: Every day. He'd go for a walk every day. He'd always stop in to crack a joke or he'd bring us lunch or tell us a funny story. So yeah, literally every day.

He fed the homeless. He took care of people. I think one of the most touching things was after he passed away, we heard crying outside and we went out and there was this homeless man literally laying in front of the door hysterical.

Evans: For years, there was a post office diagonally across from Lucky's. Today that building belongs to the acclaimed Tribute Pizza, which is regularly ranked on lists of the top pizzas in the U.S. and almost always has a line out the door. And Lucky was there from the beginning, when Tribute was just an idea. Founder and chef Matt Lyons is a serious restaurateur with a serious reverence for his neighbor Lucky.

Lyons: Tribute Pizza, my company started as a pop-up. It was just like a one-man operation with a little pizza oven that was kind of like a toaster oven. And I wanted to host a pop-up at Lucky's. I wanted to cook pizza there. And it was perfect. And I showed up and I had a meal. And by the second time I showed up, he had remembered my name, my dog's name and my order. And took me maybe a half a dozen or a dozen visits before I asked him about the pop-up. But he definitely laughed at me. Because it sounded like such an insane idea to him. But by then we were already friends. And even though I was never ever gonna cook pizza there, I kept going to sit at his counter and interact with him and the rest of the people who would go and eat there after a rough night or a rough month, $4.

And I was actually sitting at the counter when the For Lease sign went up in the old North Park Post Office caddy corner. And I asked Lucky what he thought of the spot across the street, and he said that he missed the post office. I asked him who he wanted as a new neighbor and he said so quick, he said, off track betting. I said, I don't think that's gonna happen, Lucky. And he said, maybe you, maybe you finally make pizza on this corner.

I think we opened right about two years later. He brought me that lucky money tree on opening day. Really glad that he brought me into this corner and that I ended up here, and that he was my neighbor and my friend for 12 or maybe 13 years.

Wallace: What do you take from him as a restaurant owner yourself?

Lyons: Lucky had about 22 or 24 seats and it would get full, and he'd remember every single person's order. And he'd remember every single person's name. And that small gesture makes you feel so special. And that feeling special or making someone who's eating at your establishment is like the fundamental essence of hospitality. And I try to remember everybody's name and I try to take orders without writing anything down. And I think, like Lucky, I probably also get it at about 98% right.

Evans: Matt led an effort to rename Lucky's block on Grim Avenue to Lucky Lane. Supporters gathered more than 4,000 signatures from community members and crowdfunded $8,000, partly for the street sign itself and partly for a new Lucky Wong memorial scholarship. San Diego City Council voted to approve it, and in June, the ceremonial Lucky Lane sign went up.

Lyons: I think that lucky thought that his legacy was the diner, and I think the legacy was the love and culture and community that he brought to this corner. So I don't know of another way to memorialize someone on a corner where they spent 50 years, but this one felt right.

Evans: Lucky's approach to running his restaurant might not be the blueprint for a lucrative chain — like, you can't franchise this idea. But it created a place that made North Park feel like home, and a legend whose name will hang above the street for decades to come.

Wong: I think that's the thing for people. It's not just missing my dad. I mean, that's part of it, but also a place where they gather, where they built community together. It's just like, it would be like a school closing down or a church closing down. That's a place where they have memories.

Evans: Lucky's diner might be gone, but a new restaurant is taking over its old space and keeping its spirit alive.

Brian Foxworth, Jr: Everybody in that community loved Lucky. They loved the location. They went there to support him. And then when that spot came open, I was like, oh, we gotta, we have to do what we can to see if we can get that location.

Evans:  That's Brian Foxworth, Jr. He runs Mom's Chicken and Waffles with his parents. He says they offered way less than some of the other restaurants vying for the space. But their commitment to operating a family-run business — just like Lucky — helped them stand out.

Foxworth: People, they know us and our family 'cause we're the ones that run it just like how Lucky did. We plan on keeping a lot of the things the same. The old-school dining look of it. The seating's gonna stay. We're pretty much just getting new flooring and putting some paint on the walls. We're also gonna have a Lucky special that we'll keep going: potatoes, the bacon and the eggs with a side of toast. So we'll have that going. The same thing. I think he had it for like $9.99 or something like that. So we'll keep that going for the locals and just to honor Lucky's legacy. Keep going.

Evans: Maybe these details will make Lucky's former regulars feel at home or maybe they'll spark conversations for years to come, inspiring newcomers and younger generations to share generosity like Lucky and now Brian. And Mom's Chicken and Waffles is especially excited about their new ceremonial address.

Foxworth: 3804 Lucky Lane. That sounds, I love that. That's beautiful.

Evans: At a ceremony a few months ago, Matt and June gave speeches to a small crowd gathered to celebrate the street's renaming.

Lyons: Lucky's an unlikely hero. He showed up to this corner and served breakfast for nearly 50 years. He's the most humble man with the most humble restaurant. What he did here was far beyond breakfast. He built a community. He brought me here to this corner, and now I'm so proud that Lucky's name will live here forever.

Wong: Even though my dad ran a diner, cooking was not his passion. What helped him to keep going was that he loved socializing. He loved people. He believed that if you do good, that goodness will come back to you.

Evans: On the sign, beneath the words Lucky Lane is Lucky's Chinese name, written in Chinese characters. Lucky was a nickname inspired by his wins at the horse-races — his favorite pastime on his one day off each week. Part of his Chinese name translates to rock. Like anyone who finds success, Lucky experienced moments of good fortune. But the true foundation of his legacy was consistency and steadiness. Steady as a rock.

From Monday through Saturday, for nearly 50 years, Lucky worked at his diner in North Park.

Wallace: Where do you think he got that work ethic and just deep level of commitment from?

Wong: I think it is cultural because I see a lot of Asians that are very hardworking and he was an immigrant too. So for immigrants you have to persevere and he has a selfless quality too. And nowadays it's hard to find. And I think people need, they're drawn to that. We seek someone that has those qualities that my dad has, you feel close to divinity in some ways.

Evans: Lucky's story really is one that can restore faith in the universe. He was kind, he wasn't greedy. He built a place that felt like home and was open to everyone. And he was successful as a result of that. Karma worked the way it's supposed to for him. The paradox and beauty of Lucky is that he did totally normal things. He went to work at a simple job everyday, and had lots of conversations with everyone he met.  Simple, kind moments multiplied thousands, tens of thousands, millions of times add up to an extraordinary life.

Wong: Sometimes you do see other people's souls, not just my dad, but a lot of people. If they have those qualities there, you are able to sense it.

Some people see him as larger than life or they're in awe of him. But like I said at his funeral, that door of being good, that door's open to anybody.

[Music]

Evans: Special thanks to June Wong, Matt Lyons, Brian Foxworth, Jr., August Wang, the r/FoodSanDiego subreddit and everyone who sent us their memories about Lucky:  Dan, Colleen, Douglas, Lesley, Gail, Ana, Ruth, Thursday, Jerry, Omid and Hannah. We raise a mug of diner coffee to you all.

Next week on the Finest, we have a live episode. If you're listening in time, join us on August 23rd for a live taping of The Finest at the KPBS San Diego Book Festival. You'll get to hear the show in person and meet us afterward.

I'll be joined by local authors Emily Greenberg and Moses Ose Utomi to talk about fact, fiction and fantasy, the power of storytelling, identity and how their distinct voices intersect in surprising ways.

The festival features dozens of authors, panels and events all celebrating books and reading in San Diego.

And that episode will drop August 28th.

Thanks so much for listening. If you enjoyed the show, please leave us a rating on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen. It really helps new listeners discover the show. And best of all, if you can think of anyone in your life that might like The Finest, please share it with them.

I'm your host, Julia Dixon Evans. Our producer, lead writer and composer is Anthony Wallace. Our engineer is Ben Redlawsk, and our editor is Chrissy Nguyen.

This transcript has been edited for clarity and conciseness.