a ghost robot world

Star Lucky Kitchen

Star Lucky Kitchen

The Star Lucky Kitchen is a home away from home for the city’s Gatecrashers. It is literally built into the side of the East City Bridge anchorage. East City Bridge was built with a metal-grate maintenance platform suspended below the main road deck – twenty stories above the City River. There are entrance/exit ramps leading to it from each side of the bridge, accessed from either side in the middle of the span.  The first Gatecrashers who took these ramps found a relatively tranquil and deserted resting spot where they could eat their take-out food in what was a very central, and more importantly neutral, parking spot

Soon an enterprising food cart vendor ,who goes by Lucky Elvis,  pushed his cart way out to the middle of the bridge and down onto the vertiginous platform. Over the course of ten years, Elvis built it into a permanent structure and may or may not have ever received city approval. The anchorage itself was adorned  by massive stars carved into the stone. When Elvis painted the word LUCKY KITCHEN across the center of the span where the largest star – almost 20 feet tall – was positioned, the Gatecrashers began calling their favorite food stop the Star Lucky Kitchen.

Excerpt from The Palomar Observer restaurant review:

Star Lucky Kitchen. One continuous five-meter, stainless steel countertop runs chest-high across an open kitchen window, where tray after tray of food slides out to hungry customers. Directly to the right is a spotless high security revolving bulletproof package window for medical supplies. Here the two-person Gatecrasher crews grab a quick bite of super spicy street PIM and also restock their supplies since Star Lucky is a licensed dispensary, from micro-dermal plasters to opioid analgesics (up to control series 10), they’ve got it all.

Under the thunderous clatter of the overhead trains, a dozen reactive-armor-clad ambulance, also known as “sleds” are backed into the parking lot. It’s a bazaar-like alley of tailgaters, with drivers and medics lounging in the back of their sleds, doors open, eating, cleaning and gearing up for a long night.