HOLLYWOOD – When Mr Elon Musk announced he was building the Tesla Diner in 2018, it was sold as a wholesome, Americana-flavoured vision of the future in Hollywood: electric cars charging around a communal big screen while drivers fuelled up on reimagined fast food.

Since then, the world’s richest man and electric car giant Tesla’s chief executive acquired Twitter in a chaotic takeover, donated millions of dollars to US President Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign and, as the former head of the Department of Government Efficiency, set out to slash agencies across the federal government.

By the time the diner opened in July, Tesla had reported declining revenue and the Los Angeles restaurant looked more like a distraction for a brand in crisis.

From the vantage point of a drone camera, two storeys high, the Tesla Diner might still appear as a retro-futuristic spaceship gleaming on Santa Monica Boulevard. But from the point of view of a person on the ground, it is something else.

On the weekends, you are just as likely to see protesters waving images portraying Mr Musk as a Nazi as you are to see fans live-streaming their shuffle through the line.

Plenty of people never leave their cars, ordering food delivered to them by servers while they charge at one of 80 reserved spots.

A worker brings an order to a diner waiting in his car at the Tesla Diner in Los Angeles in August 2025. Tesla drivers can order from the app and often eat without leaving their cars.

PHOTO: ZACH CALLAHAN/NYTIMES

As I waited to get in, a woman on a skateboard whooshed by, shouting “Losers!” at the line, while people carried out bags of Tesla merch – T-shirts, baseball caps, gummy candies and robot action figures. I saw several Cybertrucks parked below the big screens (which were, at that moment, playing an ad for Cybertrucks) .

The food itself looked like merch, too: waffles embossed with the Tesla app’s lightning-bolt icon and dusted with powdered sugar, like the Mickey waffles at Disney parks; burgers and sandwiches packed in vented Cybertruck-shaped boxes , at least until the kitchen ran out of them .

For the culinary portion of the project, Tesla hired restaurateur Bill Chait, known for bakeries Republique and Tartine, along with chef Eric Greenspan of the Foundry on Melrose who has lately been developing ghost-kitchen concepts, including MrBeast Burger. Greenspan also formulated a Kraft single dupe at his company New School American, and that thin, sticky rendition of American cheese, made from a base of aged cheddar, shows up all over the Tesla menu.

Chilli cheese fries, a burger and a grilled cheese sandwich at the Tesla Diner in Los Angeles in August 2025.

PHOTO: ZACH CALLAHAN/NYTIMES

In its first hectic days of business, most of the menu items advertised across platforms were not available. When I went, there were no salads, no veggie patties, no club sandwiches, no avocado toasts, no beef tallow-fried hash browns, no biscuits, no pies, no cookies, no soft serve, no milkshakes, no “epic bacon”.

A chilli cheese dog from the Tesla Diner in Los Angeles in August 2025. The new restaurant from the electric car giant is a smash burger and content machine, drawing Mr Elon Musk’s fans and protesters.

PHOTO: ZACH CALLAHAN/NYTIMES

But agreeable chicken tenders were sandwiched between tough waffles, slathered with a very sweet mayonnaise. And a generic beef chilli was so finely ground under its puddle of cheese, the fact that it was wagyu seemed irrelevant.

The hot dog – an all-beef Snap-o-Razzo – was withered by the time I made it to an empty chair in the full sun of the second- stor ey balcony. (The shade sails had all been removed following an accident.)

Patrons dine at the Tesla Diner in Los Angeles in August 2025. Two big screens play movies, including Spaceballs, as well as old episodes of Star Trek, live SpaceX launches and advertisements for Tesla products.

PHOTO: ZACH CALLAHAN/NYTIMES

Tesla engineers built a proprietary tool to flatten patties for the smash burgers with crisp browned edges, held together with caramelised onions and cheese, which seemed to be on most tables. It lent the dish a superficial whiff of innovation, but the burger did not stand out in any meaningful way.

Tesla, which still promises a vision of the future to its devoted fans, fails to deliver on one that is not bland and familiar. If you look past the design by Stantec, this is a high-volume restaurant with a menu of meat-focused fast food that diners order on touch screens, then pick up at the counter. It is an unremarkable model that chains rolled out years ago.

Seating at the Tesla Diner in Los Angeles in August 2025. The building, designed by Stantec, has booth seating downstairs and a balcony upstairs.

PHOTO: ZACH CALLAHAN/NYTIMES

In marketing materials, and on its opening day, Tesla had teased a robot making popcorn on the second floor, but there were no robots in operation when I stopped in , other than the one I saw outside – a comedian dressed up as the Tesla Bot Optimus, who said he planned to make funny videos until he “got kicked out” .

I had also read on Tesla’s website that this was a 24-hour restaurant, but as a worker explained to me, it was 24 hours only for Tesla drivers who ordered on the app, from their cars. For everyone else, doors opened at 6am and closed at midnight.

The Tesla Diner has been sold as a charging station, a drive-in and “a classic American diner”, but by the time I left, I wondered if whoever wrote that copy had been to a diner. A diner is a kind of north star – its doors open, its menu constant.

Tesla drivers charge their cars at the Tesla Diner in Los Angeles in August 2025.

PHOTO: ZACH CALLAHAN/NYTIMES

For now, you never know how long it will take to get into the Tesla Diner or, when you do, what may or may not be available.

After a recent post about the restaurant’s “epic bacon” went viral on X, disparaging the abyss between its artificially glossy image on the touch screen and its actual, grimmer presentation in real life, the bacon disappeared from the menu. What bacon? It was as if it never existed.

None of this seemed to deter the people in line. On my way out, I squeezed into a lift with my colleagues, some international tourists and a few locals who had eaten at the Tesla Diner three times in one week and were already planning to come back. I could not make sense of it.

“We don’t order anything except for the burgers now,” one of them told me. “Everything else is just so bad.” NYTIMES

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