ALL THAT THE chicken farmer wanted was lasagna. He didn't want to change the world. He wanted lasagna. He wasn't tired of eating eggs and chickens, eggs and chickens, eggs and chickens; he just this time wanted something different.

Lasagna sounded good. Pesto spinach lasagna. Three good things, in layers like layers of reality or layers of eggs. Good things.

Papa Toby's Revolution Cafe, on 22nd and Bartlett, in the Mission. It is my goal to be the least political, least spiritual, least predictable animal on our planet. And so long as I have that as a goal, I know, I am failing on all three fronts. Not to mention the language I use to define it – "least this," "least that," "goal whatever" – the language of comparison and judgment.

Fortunately I handle failure fairly well.

Would it be sour-grapeful of me to point out that the word revolution itself means, on the one hand, radical change and, on the other, re-arriving at the exact same point by way of something like a circle? Or spinning one's wheels? ... Whereas rotating the tires regularly will greatly increase their longevity and enhance performance.

It seems almost certain that the above thought has profound philosophical implications, but I'll be damned if I have any idea what they are. I'm a chicken farmer! All I know is I like straight lines and I love circles, but I'm inclined to move through life like a blowed-up and let-go-of balloon.

So maybe there could be a better word for radical change than revolution. Something that has less in common with car tires and more in common with lasagna. Layers and layers of rich, colorful, textured meanings and meaninglessnesses adding up to an explosive bedlam of sensory information, preferably including sausage.

But I'll take spinach and pesto. Problem is, both times I tried to order it at the Revolution Cafe, Papa Toby let me down. The first time it was understandable. Seven o'clock on a Sunday night, they're out of lasagna. I can understand that. The kitchen was closing. The kitchen closes at seven on Sundays, nine normally. But they stay open for coffee, beer, wine, and general revolution, until midnight, one in the morning on Friday and Saturday nights.

Gotta like that, in a coffeehouse around here.

"You can bring something in from outside," the guy said. "There's a taqueria across the street."

That's Altena, not my favorite. Anyway, I was just killing time before a show, my friend Joel's CD release party at the Make-Out Room, also across the street. (Maybe my favorite title ever for an album: Free Range Donut.) So I had a cup of coffee that was maybe one of my favorite cups of coffee in recent history, and if I would have had Joel's album already, on my person, I'll bet you 10 dollars I would have dunked it. Instead I ran to my pickup truck, down the block, and pulled from a grocery bag one of my favorite maple-oat scones, from Rainbow, to dry down my coffee.

I guess it was just a pretty all-around hyperbolic night that night, even without lasagna, and anyway I remembered it like a bird or bear remembers a particularly fruitful blueberry bush. Went back, this time with Joel, and Earl Butter, just a couple days later, and this time for lunch. It was 1 p.m. All I wanted was lasagna.

"I'll have the lasagna," I said.

"No lasagna," they said.

"No!" I said, staggering back a step, as if stabbed. I felt stabbed. My hands came up instinctively to my chest, pressing the wound, holding in the blood.

The lady who makes the lasagna hadn't brought it in yet, the unreasonable wretch. I'm just kidding, but I'm serious. I was devastated. I would have taken my bidness elsewhere except that Joel had already placed his order, a tuna melt, and Earl hadn't showed up yet. So I had to swallow my incredulity and order something else.

A grilled chicken Caesar salad for $8.

About which I have this to say: Yeah, right.

There's not a whole hell of a lot of choices to choose from, menu-wise, at the Revolution Cafe. Sandwiches. Salads. It's a great place for a late-night cup of great coffee, on the sidewalk. They do have beer and wine, and maybe, sometimes, if you're lucky and hit them right at the right magical moment, spinach pesto lasagna! Which I'm sure is to die for. Or kill for.

Revolutionwise, I feel more circular at Macondo.

Papa Toby's Revolution Cafe. 3248 22nd St. (at Bartlett), SF. (415) 642-0474. Mon.-Thurs., 11 a.m.-midnight; Fri., 11 a.m.-1 a.m.; Sat., 10 a.m.-1 a.m.; Sun., 10 a.m.-midnight. Beer and wine. MasterCard, Visa. Wheelchair accessible.

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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).