A DENTALLY CHALLENGED old-timer with a cane and a cowboy hat was patrolling Mission Street between 29th and 28th, asking people if they were afraid of him. I had just come out of Goood Frikin' Chicken on the corner there, and I had no creaks in my joints. I was a well-oiled machine. On top of my game, and so on and so forth.

So I'm walking right behind this guy, he's got the cane in one hand and a plastic shopping bag with a dirty sitting pillow in the other, stops this kid with little round glasses and headphones on, minding his own business.

"Are you afraid of me?" the old man asks.

The kid, confused, takes off his headphones. "What's that?"

"I thought maybe you were afraid of me," the old man clarifies.

Now the kid's even more confused, so he retreats back into his headphones and keeps walking.

I've already slowed down my pace to stay with the guy. Now I pick it up a step to pull up next to him, wait until I see his head turn toward me, and cut him off at the pass: "Are you afraid of me?" I ask.

"I'm not afraid of you," he says.

"I'm not afraid of you, either."

"All right then," he says.

I duck into a produce store and buy two ears of corn, three for a dollar. When I come back out, I see the guy's bag with the dirty sitting pillow in it setting on a wooden chair outside the next-door corner store. The old man is inside, talking to the guy behind the counter, no doubt trying to ascertain whether or not he's afraid of him.

Did I tell you I was firing on all cylinders? I pretended to be perusing potatoes until the old man came back out of the store, and then I wheeled around and sort of semi-shrieked, under my breath. "Jesus! You scared the hell out of me!" I said.

He picked up his bag with the dirty sitting pillow off the chair in between us and, eyeballing me sideways, like I was crazy, walked away.

I went home and put my corn in the fridge, for later.

For now all I needed was a nap. Goood Frikin' Chicken, speaking of places with pictures of chickens on their windows, is not all that fucking half bad. I suppose they would have called it that – Not All That Frikin' Half-Bad Chicken – but then it couldn't have been so reasonably reduced to GFC. As for the number of o's in "Goood," I don't know what to tell you. Except that o is a pretty good letter. As letters go. So ...

OK, corner of Mission and 29th. I watched this place coming together last winter when I used to live down the road there, and I always wondered about it. Now I know: rotisserie chicken, "open flame" chicken, or "gyro" chicken. Those are your basic choices, although they do concede a daily vegetarian special.

I got my half-a-chicken ($7.95) open-flamed with baked beans and salad. The chicken was surprisingly good: tear-away tender with plenty of juices left. How they do it like that, over an open fire, is a mystery to me. Must be a cute little fire, or a faraway one. Usually you can count on rotisserie chicken to stay juicy, but barbecuing is a whole lot trickier.

Anyway, they do it. And they serve it up with some kind of great, greasy pita bread and a real-lettuce salad with tomatoes dressed with olive oil, lemon, and herbery. The beans I can vouch for. Your other side dish choices are potatoes, pilaf, mac and cheese, and hummus.

The only other things you have to think about are whole vs. half, and do you just want chicken, or do you want the full meal (the chicken, with one side and salad)? Oh, and where are you going to eat it? You can get it to go, of course, or you can sit at one of their tile-top tables with inexplicable fish designs. Or you can sit at the out-facing counter with a wide-open view of the 3300 Club across the street, the corner of Mission and 29th in general, and, if you're lucky, the old guy in the cowboy hat, cane in one hand, plastic shopping bag with a dirty sitting pillow in it in the other. Nothing to be afraid of.

Goood Frikin' Chicken. 10 29th St., Ste. 10 (at Mission), S.F. (415) 970-2428. Daily, 11 a.m.-10 p.m. Takeout available. Beer and wine. MasterCard, Visa. Wheelchair accessible. Dan Leone (cheapeatsguy@yahoo.com) is the author of Eat This, San Francisco (Sasquatch Books), a collection of Cheap Eats restaurant reviews, and The Meaning of Lunch (Mammoth Books).

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Dan Leone is the author of Eat This, San Francisco (Sasquatch Books), a collection of Cheap Eats restaurant reviews, and The Meaning of Lunch (Mammoth Books).