Pinecrest Diner

The Pinecrest Diner is a popular all-night diner-style restaurant in San Francisco, California, notorious for a murder over an order of eggs.

Infamy

On July 24, 1997 an attractive woman sat down at Pinecrest's counter and placed an order for poached eggs. Chef Hashem Zayed, a Jordanian immigrant, accepted the order even though the item was not on the menu. Waitress 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 binge, Zayed brought a .380 semiautomatic handgun to work. He announced he would shoot Menicou, then did so five times at point-blank 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 adjourned in her honor on July 28. In the years since, the incident has become part of San Francisco lore. 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 just over three years later, on August 13, 2000.

External links

* cite web
url = http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/1997/07/25/MN13283.DTL
title = Cook Shot Waitress Over Egg Order, Police Say
publisher = San Francisco Chronicle
author = Henry K. Lee
date = 25 Jul 1997
* cite web
title = A short-order murder
url = http://www.sfweekly.com/1997-10-15/news/a-short-order-murder/1
publisher = San Francisco Weekly
author = Lisa Davis
date = 15 Oct 1997
* cite web
title = A Killer Dies, a Mystery Lingers
url = http://www.sfweekly.com/2000-09-06/news/a-killer-dies-a-mystery-lingers/
publisher = San Francisco Weekly
author = Lisa Davis
date = 6 Sep 2000
* cite web
title = Notorious SF: Pinecrest Diner
url = http://mistersf.com/notorious/index.html?notpinecrest02.htm
publisher = MisterSF
author =
date =
* [http://cityinsights.com/sanfran/pinecrestmenu.htm Pinecrest menu]
*geolinks-US-buildingscale|37.787009|-122.409998