Crazy Eight: the hardest-to-believe food stories of 2015. Plus a Lotto tale.

Fact beats fiction, again.

And again.

Seriously. You can't make this stuff up.

Weekly Editor Mary Duan's husband wins the lottery the night before a trip to Vegas? Then proceeds to hit on roulette the first time he's every played?

Coastal Luxury Management loses a restaurant due to a clerical error? And is actually happy about it?

Forty restaurants come to town? Two massive wineries sell in one week? One of the most read stories of the year is an April Fools joke? 

So it be.

Which is why, before we get too deep into a promising 2016, it's time to peek at the most OMG/WTF stories of 2015, as detailed in "In-N-Out update and amazing 2015 recaps," and appearing here, ranked and linked. Call them the Crazy Eight:

8 • Some serious Carmel Valley wine developments went down over the course of a few weeks. Folktale Winery launched a dynamic plan for new wines, barrel room concerts and social tastings in the old Chateau Julien. Santa Lucia Highlands pioneer Talbott Vineyards sold to Gallo. And Joullian Vineyards sold to a 20-something couple from L.A.

7 • Big inhale…and…Coastal Luxury Management founding partners David Bernahl and Rob Weakley started the year with counter lawsuits while Bernahl et. al. were in court fighting for CLM’s Faith & Flower in L.A. then Corporate Chef Levi Mezick left, star Chef Jason Franey came to 1833, CLM won F&F convincingly, Weakley opened a wildly ambitious medicinal marijuana gourmet chocolate business, and CLM was bought out of Faith & Flower when they were late on a payment by a day due to a clerical error (and lost an appeal in arbitration). Bernahl celebrated NYE with panache at 1833, recreating the Champagne pyramids and hanging acrobatics that were a staple at Rose.Rabbit.Lie. in Las Vegas, which went from CLM to Cosmopolitan control to start the year.

6 • More than three dozen quality restaurants, virtually all locally owned, debuted in one calendar year, a runaway record for Monterey County, according to the most seasoned industry vets, and ample inspiration to rank the top 30 new Monterey County Restaurants of 2016.

5 • Salinas natives Bryan Davis and Joanne Haruta of Lost Spirits Technology broke out a major venture-capital project in a big way, introducing a reactor that ages whiskey and rum 20 years—in six days—at the American Distillery Institute Conference and on the TEDx stage. Yesterday Spirits Business Magazine gave Lost Spirits its 2016 "Global Master of Innovation" prize. Find out why with "Lost Spirits Technology: A new way to make superb liquor quicker" and Davis' TEDx talk itself.

4 • In Del Rey Oaks, a group of entrepreneurial Middlebury International Institute students formed a company called Both Co. and hand-built an amazing backyard aquaponics farm and a plan to take its sustainable food to food deserts around the world. It's a neat setup that required a fun and informative Both Co. photo slideshow.

3 • Sierra Mar Exec Chef John Cox introduced a way to help clean plates using compressed air rather than water. If implemented in restaurants across the state, it could conceivably save billions of gallons a year.

2 • Weekly Editor Mary Duan's husband Chuck Messenger won the lottery with a ticket from Star Market. She said, “See ya, suckers,” then realized how great (or, at least, strangely unique) the mission here is—and got some "incentivized" sweetening from the powers-that-be—and decided to stick around. To celebrate, she shared a First Amendment Coalition Free Speech & Open Government Award that same month. The original story we ran, "Winning the Lottery (Really): Fallout and reflection after my boss’ husband won the California Lotto," tells the most stunning part of the tale.

1 • Only a year as crazy as this one merits a faux story as number one. And amid all the crazy, it furnishes a reality check: No matter how many impressive mom-and-pops emerge, people still burn the most calories angsting breathlessly over the most recent In-N-Out update. So they weren't happy when an April 1 report emerged describing how In-N-Out had to cancel its buildout because of too much goose poo in the parking lot. The fallout on Facebook was dramatic, but will be dwarfed by the response when it opens next month.