“Lucky” Wong opened Lucky’s Golden Phenix Restaurant on the corner of North Park Way and Grim Avenue in 1975.
For half a century, he cracked eggs and jokes there.
Lucky did it all — cooking and serving clients himself, often remembering their orders by heart. He gave them Christmas gifts and hosted parties for them at the restaurant.
North Park changed over those years, but Lucky and his prices never did — a full breakfast plate for under $10, a San Diego miracle.
One customer called it “a place for the crustiest of punks and the bluest of collars.”
“After a rough night or a rough month, it was the place they could afford or the place that they could sit and be made to feel at home,” said Matthew Lyons, who owns Tribute Pizza across the street.
Lucky knew Lyons’ order since the first time he visited more than a decade ago: two eggs, scrambled; hash browns, extra crispy; white toast with Smucker’s jelly — strawberry, not grape; coffee and orange juice.
He knew Lyons liked to maintain a certain ratio of cream to sugar in his coffee, so he’d bring a second cup instead of topping it up. He remembered to ask about his dog.
The day Lyons opened Tribute Pizza, Lyons said Lucky lugged over a money tree that weighed as much as he did, to bring him prosperity. It still sits by the window that faces the now-shuttered Golden Phenix.
Lucky died in December at 90 years old, in the restaurant where he lived.
Lyons said a couple years before, Lucky had tried to sell it to him, to keep it going.
“I told him that I didn't think that his legacy was that counter or that old Coke machine. His legacy was him and the community and the love,” he said.
Lyons created the petition to rename the 3800 block of Grim Avenue “Lucky Lane.” Within weeks, more than 4,200 people signed.
Lyons is also raising money for the cost of changing the sign.
“But I think that we're going to raise $3,000 in about five minutes,” he said to laughter at a press conference outside what had been the Golden Phenix. “Anything beyond that is going to be the seed money for the Lucky Wong Memorial Scholarship for underprivileged culinary students in San Diego.”
Lucky immigrated from Taishan, China at 14 years old.
His daughter, June Wong, grew up in the Golden Phenix. She watched his hard work hour after hour, day after day, year after year.
She said the renaming of the street as a sign of respect would mean a lot to him.
She thinks it gives hope for the power of an ordinary life — how consistent, daily kindness adds up to something extraordinary.
“When I talk to other people, they're in awe of him, but I see him — because he's my father, so I see him very realistically. He's very human to me. And so to me, when I look at this, I think — as long as you do good, that door could be open to you, too,” she said.
Councilmember Stephen Whitburn announced Thursday that he intends to use one of his two honorary street renamings per term on Lucky Lane. It will go before the full city council for formal approval.
