Less than six months because it opened, Elon Musk’s Tesla Diner has the really feel of a ghost city. Gone is the Optimus robotic serving popcorn, gone are the carnivore-diet-inspired “Epic Bacon” strips, gone are the hours-long, hundred-person lines wrapped round the block. Even the restaurant’s all-star chef, Eric Greenspan, is gone. The Hollywood burger-and-fries store looks like a shell of the bustling eatery it was when it opened in late July.
On a balmy Friday afternoon in December, the car parking zone for Tesla automotive charging was, at finest, half full. Inside what the firm describes as a “retro-futuristic” diner, a handful of individuals trickled in, ordering burgers and hotdogs or asking for merch. The upstairs deck, AKA “Skypad”, was vacant apart from a pair of staff stringing vacation lights. Extra employees was busy at work, buffing fingerprints off the chrome partitions and taking out the trash, than there have been prospects. The diner was spotless.
The novelty of consuming at a restaurant owned by the richest particular person in the world appears to have worn off. When the Tesla diner opened in summer season, it introduced in droves of the CEO’s followers and curious onlookers. However then got here the onsite anti-Musk protests, noise complaints from neighbors and prospects who mentioned menu objects usually offered out or, once they have been obtainable, have been served soggy and chilly.
Greenspan, a graduate of Le Cordon Bleu who helped launch the Mr Beast Burger chain, instructed the Los Angeles Instances final month that he was leaving the Tesla Diner to focus on opening a Jewish deli referred to as Mish. In accordance to Eater, the chef removed his previous Instagram posts referencing the Tesla Diner as a newly minted ex-boyfriend may.
Greenspan has not publicly mentioned why he left and did not return a request for remark. Tesla additionally did not return a request for remark.
Greenspan and different California restaurateurs who praised the Tesla Diner faced pushback for supporting Musk. The Tesla CEO is seen as a polarizing determine who donated almost $300m to get Donald Trump elected after which led the so-called “division of presidency effectivity” (Doge) in its speedy and haphazard teardown of federal companies. Throughout a speech at Trump’s inauguration, Musk made what rights groups have described as back-to-back Nazi salutes – one thing repeatedly portrayed in the picket indicators held by Tesla Diner protesters.
‘Grease meets The Jetsons with Supercharging’
Musk has been speaking about the idea of a 50s-style Tesla diner in LA since at least 2018 as a part of an concept to have facilities for ready drivers related to Supercharger stations. He touted the plans for it in 2023 as “Grease meets The Jetsons with Supercharging” and claimed the diner would launch later that 12 months. When it lastly did open in the summer season of 2025, he referred to as it “one among the coolest spots in LA” and vowed that if the idea went properly Tesla would open diners in main cities round the world. Thus far, there is just one.
“This is a fairly particular diner. Should you are in the LA space, it’s price visiting,” Musk mentioned on Tesla’s second-quarter earnings name, simply two days after the diner opened. “It’s a shining beacon of hope in an in any other case bleak city panorama.”
The diner obtained immense media protection upon opening however poor reviews from restaurant critics, who described the meals as forgettable and the idea as little greater than a company branding train. Its menu consisted of fast-food staples like a $13.50 smash burger, AKA “Tesla Giga Burger”, and an $8 milkshake, together with extra internet-coded meals like the $12 maple-glazed “Epic Bacon” strips and a small-sized $8 “Wagyu Beef Chili Cup”.
A show case with Tesla merchandise featured a “levitating Cybertruck” figurine for $175 and a black hoodie emblazoned with a graphic of the diner for $95.
Tesla posted on X in October that it had offered 50,000 burgers since its opening – a median of a bit over 700 a day. Musk proclaimed that month that the diner was successful and prompt that he would open others close to Tesla places of work in Palo Alto and Austin. Tesla has but to announce any formal plans for growth.
On social media, the wave of meals influencers making TikTok and Instagram movies about the diner slowed in the months after its opening. Reviewers commenting on the $13 hotdog or posing subsequent to the big drive-in screens taking part in Star Trek are now comparatively uncommon. Musk, who normally posts dozens of occasions a day on X, has solely made scant mentions of the diner on the platform and didn’t tackle it on Tesla’s third quarter earnings name in October.
The diner additionally seems to have pivoted to internet hosting some occasions, together with a “Vacation Bash on The Skypad” in mid-December that includes limitless Tesla meals and drinks, plus a dwell DJ, for $75 a ticket.
As the diner narrows its ambitions, a few of the buyer complaints have likewise waned. The pared down menu is totally stocked, and meals got here out scorching and quick on the balmy Friday in December. One enthusiastic Yelp reviewer mentioned she not too long ago visited the diner on a Saturday evening. She posted a photograph of her meal, saying “the burger was strong and the fries have been completely crispy”.
“Better part was that it wasn’t crowded in any respect,” she added.
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