A Dollar, A Dream—And Oh, So Close to $640 Mil

A Forest Hills restaurant owner, along with a group that included his staffers and friends, were just a single ball away from winning the mother load Mega Millions jackpot, according to the New York Post.

“Arrrrrrghh! That could have been $640 million if only I had that one number!” Diancai Zhou, owner Fuji Japanese Cuisine on Queens Blvd, told The Post.

But the group isn't going away empty-handed. Because they had the first five numbers correct and missed the the all-important Mega ball digit of (there's was 39) their luck was good enough to earn them a second-place score—a cool $250,000.

“Why couldn’t I get that number? I’d travel the world and I wouldn’t have to think about money ever again. But this money will help me a lot,” Zhou's friend Ivy Song told the paper. “I’m going to splurge on my children.”

They purchased the ticket at 113 News on Queens Blvd. near 112th St.

The shop may have some lottery luck on its side: Sikder said he had another second-place ticket sold at his store just last week when the jackpot was stood at $363 million.

“It’s good for our store. People are saying this the lucky store. These are our biggest wins so far,” Shiblu Sikder, a co-manager at 113 News, told the paper.

In case you missed the drawing may be holding a pricey piece of paper in you pocket, the winning numbers were: 2, 4, 23, 38 and 46. The Mega ball was 23.

The life-changing chunk of change was won by people in Maryland, Illinois and Kansas, who will split the record-setting windfall. There were 161 second-place tickets sold around the country.