Everyone remembers their first Weasel. The breakfast concoction of scrambled eggs topped with cheese and chili made Chuck’s Coffee Shop in Belmont Shore “Locally World Famous.”

For more than 50 years the restaurant’s affable owner, Chuck Tinkler, jump-started the mornings of loyal customers with his hearty breakfasts and even heartier conversation.

Tinkler died Thursday morning after complications following a recent fall. He was 77.

“He was a legend to me,” said restaurateur John Morris, who frequented Chuck’s almost as often as Tinkler visited Morris’ Boathouse on the Bay. “He was one of the greatest guys,” said Morris. “He loved life to the maximum. A very funny man, always with a smile on his face. Anyone in the 90803 loves Chuck.”

Former Long Beach Mayor Beverly O’Neill is among those in the Belmont Shore ZIP code who has long been a big fan of Chuck’s. When she was in office, you could see her car most mornings parked outside the diner at 4120 Ocean Blvd. “All my friends knew they could find me there,” she said. “Every morning Chuck and I would have a hug. That’s what I liked, a hug and good food.”

Tinkler was born in Montreal, along with his brother Norm and sister Madelyn. In the 1950s, the family moved to Long Beach.

“We came straight to Belmont Shore,” said Madelyn, who lives in Orange County. “We always lived in Naples or the Shore. Chuck went to Rogers Junior High and Wilson.” He then went to Long Beach City College, but skipped Cal State Long Beach, enlisting instead in the Army.

Tinkler’s father, Charles, bought the building that would become his son’s diner in the early 1960s. He bought the adjoining building as well, which was the longtime location of Norm’s dry cleaning business until Norm’s recent retirement.

While Chuck’s Coffee Shop is open through lunchtime, it is known best for its breakfasts, which have always come with a side of Chuck. He would manage to talk to all of his customers, sometimes grabbing an extra chair or scootching into a booth to chat for a while.

“He was such a garrulous, interesting character,” recalled John Futch, a retired newspaperman who lives in Cambodia but returns to Belmont Shore a couple of times each year.

“Whenever I came back, I always head straight for Chuck’s,” said Futch. “Chuck would always come cruising in and work the room. He was one of my favorite characters.”

If customers didn’t come for Chuck, they surely came for the Weasel. The culinary invention, which came about when a truck driver wanted something jazzier than mere scrambled eggs to chase off a hangover, has long been cited by travel writers naturally unable to resist dropping into a diner with “Home of the Weasel” painted on the wall. One notable exception came in 2008 when a Sports Illustrated writer on the trail of swimmer Michael Phelps visited Long Beach, where she bellyached about the Belmont Plaza, “an unlovely pool, a beige hulk squatting on a grimy stretch of Long Beach in Southern California,” before noting, with upturned snout, that things didn’t improve any with the existence of a “nearby diner with a sign declaring itself HOME OF THE WEASEL.”

She apparently wasn’t lured into the place by the sign, and as a result she will one day follow Chuck into the ether without having enjoyed one of Long Beach’s most adventurous dining experiences.

Tinkler is survived by children Wayne, of Montana, and Laurie, of Virginia, his sister Madelyn and his brother Norman. A celebration of life is planned for Memorial Day weekend, with details to be announced.

Contact Tim Grobaty at 562-714-2116, tgrobaty@scng.com, @grobaty on Twitter.