(FORTUNE Magazine) – Across the top of the windows like an ornamental frieze is a tantalizing invitation: MALTS PARTIES SHAKES SUNDAES. Over the door are the two most irresistible words in the English language: FOUNTAIN LUNCH.

The Peninsula Fountain & Grill, in Palo Alto, is a venerable monument to meat loaf, macaroni and cheese, and chili and corn bread. "We haven't gone fancy," says manager Maureen Mezzell. But they are particular. One day the delivery man showed up with frozen bread. Since then, everything--even the hot dog buns--is baked on site.

The Peninsula is an institution and so, too, is the guy sitting at the counter in jacket and tie (the only guy in jacket and tie most days, this being Silicon Valley). He's Ormand McGill, 88, a magician and hypnotherapist who was at the restaurant's opening in 1923. Now he's here every day having a liquid lunch--a mocha chip milk shake. Only liquid isn't quite the right word. Three parts ice cream to one part milk, it's the only shake in America you need to chew.

There's a certain romance to the place, as owner Rob Fischer will tell you. One day an illustrator named Jan Mucklestone walked in with a hankering for a chocolate shake. After eight months of shakes, Fischer and Mucklestone started talking. You know the rest. Jan Mucklestone Fischer is there every day now, along with Ormand McGill. Join them.

--David Shribman

Peninsula Fountain & Grill, 566 Emerson St., 650-323-3131