Nobody remembers who sat down first.
Every town has a place the crowds never fill. On the corner of a street nobody can quite name, there's a counter with 3,500 stools.
Trends come through the door. They're loud, they stay a week, and they leave a mess on the counter. Then the room goes quiet and the stools empty out.
The Regulars never leave. They aren't heroes or founders. They're the people who show up on slow days, notice when a seat is empty, and remember your order when you come back.
A stool only becomes yours once you've kept it warm. It doesn't matter how loud you were. What matters is that you came back.
Your portrait is your stool, and the face on it has been sitting there longer than the neon sign.