By Ben Chapman

If you’re up at four in the morning and you’re at Tina’s Place, odds are you’ve had a few. That’s okay—you’re not alone.

By the time Tina’s opens at 3:30 a.m., a small wobbly crowd is already forming on the corner of Morgan and Flushing outside the diner. They’ll be taken care of. Tina Skermo and her crew of three have been in the kitchen since 3 a.m., getting the place ready for another shift. The diner won’t close until four in the afternoon, and Tina herself will be going the whole time like the Energizer Bunny, greeting customers by name and guessing their orders before they’ve placed them. She’s on a first-name basis with the entire zip code, and everyone in Bushwick knows her too.

At 4 a.m. a puffy punker in a Clash shirt and headband is slumped in his chair. A pile of food sits before him: home fries, eggs and plenty of water. He’s facing the small television Tina keeps going at all times, but he’s drifting in and out of sleep, oblivious to CNN.

Eventually he rouses and shuffles over to the counter where Tina’s standing. He looks confused. He asks, “Do you know where the Morgan Avenue L train stop is?”

“Sure, honey,” she replies. “It’s just three blocks that way.” Tina will tell you everything you need to know about Bushwick at four in the morning, and if she doesn’t know your name, she’ll call you “honey” instead. She has highlights in her curly hair, pulled into a cheerful ponytail high on her head. Her eyes sparkle and she has a quick smile that could melt grilled cheese.

Tina’s been running her restaurant since 1969, years before many of her customers were born. “I’ve seen some things,” she says. “From good to bad, and back to good. Things have been really good over the past five years.” The neighborhood’s improved, and with it Tina’s clientele. Gone are the drug users and serious drunks that haunted the diner in the 1970s and 1980s. The current late-night crop is wacky, but not dangerous. Girls show up missing their shoes. Diners often fall asleep—at their tables, in the bathroom. Tina wakes them up and off they go.

Strange things happen. “Last year, a man went into the bathroom. He took off his clothes in there and somehow snuck out,” Tina says. “He threw away his wallet and all of his money and wrote something about devils on the wall.” The kitchen staff kept the $60 left in his wallet.

By morning, the Budweiser casualties hobble out of Tina’s. A straight crowd of cops, truckers and students comes in for coffee and pancakes. “I feel like I never leave this place,” says one breakfasting police officer in full uniform, with his gun and nightstick. He goes into the kitchen to get his food himself. A skinny man dressed for warehouse work steps behind Tina’s counter to refill his own coffee. Nobody minds.

The easy camaraderie continues through lunchtime, when Tina’s does gangbuster business with Bushwick folks on their lunch breaks. The dining room mix is eclectic as ever: Men in khakis and collars are rubbing elbows with those in dusty overalls. Tina’s hamburger is the most popular item. The food’s hot, flavorful and cheap. The steak platter is just $9, and it’s the most expensive dish on the menu.

By 3 p.m. Tina’s stream of customers is a trickle, and the hostess is finally looking a little bushed. “I’m half dead,” she half-jokes. She still has to make the 30-minute drive to her home in Long Island. She’ll watch the Greek channel with her family and get some sleep. Then she’ll wake up 2:15 a.m. and do it all over again.