The Pinecrest Diner is a popular all-night

diner A diner is a small, inexpensive restaurant found across the United States, as well as in Canada and parts of Western Europe. Diners offer a wide range of foods, mostly American cuisine, a casual atmosphere, and, characteristically, a co ...

-style

restaurant A restaurant is a business that prepares and serves food and drinks to customers. Meals are generally served and eaten on the premises, but many restaurants also offer take-out and food delivery services. Restaurants vary greatly in appearan ...

San Francisco, California San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17t ...

, notorious for a murder over an order of eggs.

Infamy

A woman sat down at Pinecrest's counter and placed an order for poached eggs on July 24, 1997.

Chef A chef is a trained professional cook and tradesman who is proficient in all aspects of food preparation, often focusing on a particular cuisine. The word "chef" is derived from the term ''chef de cuisine'' (), the director or head of a ki ...

Hashem Zayed, a

Jordan Jordan ( ar, الأردن; tr. ' ), officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan,; tr. ' is a country in Western Asia. It is situated at the crossroads of Asia, Africa, and Europe, within the Levant region, on the East Bank of the Jordan Rive ...

ian immigrant, accepted the order even though the item was not on the

menu In a restaurant, the menu is a list of food and beverages offered to customers and the prices. A menu may be à la carte – which presents a list of options from which customers choose – or table d'hôte, in which case a pre-established seque ...

Waitress Waiting staff (British English), waitstaff (North American English), waiters (male) / waitresses (female), or servers (North American English), are those who work at a restaurant, a diner, or a bar and sometimes in private homes, attending ...

Helen Menicou, who had worked with Zayed for nearly twenty years, intervened, berating him in front of customers and other employees, and instructing him not to make the dish. The next morning, after losing several thousand dollars in an all-night

gambling Gambling (also known as betting or gaming) is the wagering of something of value ("the stakes") on a random event with the intent of winning something else of value, where instances of strategy are discounted. Gambling thus requires three ele ...

binge, Zayed brought a

.380 The .380 ACP (9×17mm) ( Automatic Colt Pistol) is a rimless, straight-walled pistol cartridge developed by firearms designer John Moses Browning. The cartridge headspaces on the mouth of the case.Wilson, R. K. ''Textbook of Automatic Pist ...

semiautomatic handgun to work. He announced he would shoot Menicou, then did so five times at

point-blank Point-blank range is any distance over which a certain firearm can hit a target without the need to compensate for bullet drop, and can be adjusted over a wide range of distances by sighting in the firearm. If the bullet leaves the barrel paral ...

range. She died in the hospital half an hour later. The murder resonated among the many people Menicou knew from her many years at Pinecrest, as well as the public. Five hundred attended her funeral, and the

California State Assembly The California State Assembly is the lower house of the California State Legislature, the upper house being the California State Senate. The Assembly convenes, along with the State Senate, at the California State Capitol in Sacramento. The ...

adjourned in her honor on July 28. In the years since, the incident has become part of San Francisco

folklore Folklore is shared by a particular group of people; it encompasses the traditions common to that culture, subculture or group. This includes oral traditions such as tales, legends, proverbs and jokes. They include material culture, rangin ...

. No motive was ever determined for the crime other than the order of poached eggs, which remain off the menu. Nor was the identity of the customer ever discovered. Zayed himself died of a

brain tumor A brain tumor occurs when abnormal cells form within the brain. There are two main types of tumors: malignant tumors and benign (non-cancerous) tumors. These can be further classified as primary tumors, which start within the brain, and seco ...

just over three years later, on August 13, 2000.

References

External links

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Pinecrest Menu
Note caption: "We regret that we cannot prepare poached eggs." {{coord, 37.787009, -122.409998, region:US_type:landmark, display=title Restaurants in San Francisco History of San Francisco Restaurants established in 1969 1969 establishments in California