Tesla’s Diner Went From Viral Sensation to Empty Pit Stop in Six Months

Surprise!

Shouldve just copied buc-ees model

Buccees sucks IMHO, I don't get the appeal at all. It's nice that it is 24 hours and the bathrooms are always clean, everything else is a turn off. It's like a living monument to American excess and consumerism.

If you go to the diner it's definitely not empty Not saying they could have more than one and it still draw crowds, but one of them does enough

>24 hours >bathrooms are always clean That's really why I go there on road trips. I'd never risk getting food at a truck stop in the US idc how nice it is

A clean bathroom and cold soda fountain that I can always count on being open is 100% of what I look for in a place to stop on a road trip. Few gas stations have that reliability.

They have EV superchargers

It's like twice as expensive as Shake Shack, probably three times as expensive as In n Out, for a worse product. There's only so many stans that can support it with repeat visits.

I think of it more like a rest stop. I'd hate going there on the regular though.

Whoa no way I wonder why

the salute requirement was just too much

Just go to Culver's. The food is excellent, the people are nice and not a a bunch of cultists eating bad soft serve. Sometimes you can even get a great pot roast at a place with truly excellent burgers and cheese curds. You may as well get custard and great food and sit next to normal people. I never leave Culver's with a bad taste in my mouth :)

Did it ever *really* have potential?

“But they have electric car chargers outside, so inventive!”

You could have just stopped at clean bathrooms. Walking to a urinal with pissed covered floors during a pit stop because no one has manners always messes up my mood

Still love the picture of the *Epic Bacon*, one of the most depressing images I’ve ever seen

There's no Culver's in California lol. Which is ironic because there's a city that's called Culver City

I’m very surprised, I was expecting the demand for epic bacon to make Tesler a $10T company

article comments mentions a $19 dog. might come with ketamine ketchup.

the big hint was that no one was talking about the food (except the articles that were ripping on it)

Just another publicity stunt. Another year and it will be boarded up.

It was on a par with the picture of the cheese single from Fyre Festival.

Cue the TesBros saying it’s fake news and actually packed and a wild success story.

According to my coworkers Elon was going to take over the restaurant game and the diner was going to be another revenue stream in the tens of billions range lmao

You don't get it, Tesla is not a bacon company anymore.

Telsa and Fyre festival have a lot in common that’s for sure 🤣

Do you work at Wendy’s?

Sadly it's probably delusional tech bros saying this

Who did Nazi this coming?

Isn't that true for all Burger Kings and McDonald's near the highways these days?

Built on hype. Not backed up by substance or quality. Applies to the Tesla Diner and to the company in general.

Are your coworkers fucking morons?

DISRUPTION

Imagine living next to this place and waking up one morning to find that they'd put a [50ft giant screen directly outside your window](https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpreview.redd.it%2Fgiant-tesla-diner-movie-screen-erected-in-front-of-v0-galvimssfief1.jpeg%3Fwidth%3D2144%26format%3Dpjpg%26auto%3Dwebp%26s%3Db7708e7a9f62346317a640e704522c36d40f6f03).

Good to hear! I passed by the 2 days ago in the early morning, and rhe charging stations were full. Just a side note: Some of the greatest music was recorded in music studios just across Santa Monica Blvd (the front of the store), and surrounding blocks. Lots of studio sessions continue to this day.

In Sweden where I'm from, EV chargers are sprouting like mushrooms, and Tesla does not have a moat around charging, because all of Europe standardised on CCS2, Tesla included. Every highway gas station has them. Every truck stop has them. Everyone can charge anywhere. So, is it easier for restaurants like McDonald's and Burger King to build a bunch of chargers to attract EV drivers, which only requires them to buy a solution from existing companies, they already have land and electricity and permits and the whole restaurant business down, or do you think it's easier for Tesla, who knows fuck all about fast food and supply chains and restaurants, to build restaurants at every supercharger? Because of course Tesla can't partner with anyone, they have to build their own branded shit, and serve their own shitty burgers, and OH WILL YOU LOOK AT THAT they're three times more expensive than existing cheap fast food places. Hmmm, why aren't customers flocking to their shit? It's a fucking mystery, and your coworkers are morons.

In Sweden where I'm from, yes. All the existing highway rest stops added EV chargers, and that's restaurants that people already know and like, or it's rest stops where people usually stop every time they road trip. Now with EV charging. It was so easy for rest stop and highway restaurants to add EV chargers, so they just did it. But we're supposed to believe that Tesla, the car company, is going to build and operate a bunch of highway restaurants as well, with their own overpriced Tesla-branded shit and be successful? Tesla owners would go there once for the novelty, and never again. Everyone else would never step foot in there except by mistake. When I was roadtripping through Sweden last summer, I was at a stop where there were a bunch of Tesla superchargers and a bunch of non-nazi chargers. Most Teslas charged at theirs, and the rest of us happily waited in line for the normal chargers, because fuck them. A Tesla would pull away from their supercharger, freeing up a spot, and everyone in line for the others just ignored it. Until some Tesla owner joined the queue, saw a supercharger spot was free, and asked if any of us wanted it. No thanks, buddy. All yours.

Wow, it managed six months?

I thought by now there was meant to be a chain of diners across the US and even internationall, all staffed by fully self operating Optimus roobots!?

The fact that there was " around the block* 6th months ago says a lot about the USA.

It’s going to achieve that revenue next year. But it’s not just a restaurant, it’s a place where… you go jerk off to Elon’s prophecies

>Tesla owners would go there once for the novelty, and never again. Everyone else would never step foot in there except by mistake. Like it says in the article, the diner is unwelcoming for anyone who isn't a Tesla or Elon stan.

It's insane that for a brief moment, Tesla was a bacon company. Anything to pump the stock.

I saw this article posted in some more general subreddit, but couldn't figure out how to crosspost since Reddit changed its design again to this fuckass version. ANYWAY, in there, they talked about how LA (and very specifically LA) has "instagrammable" locations popping up and shutting down all the time. It's so focused on surface that everyone and their mother will go visit any novelty place. Once. But none of these places build a lasting audience, so they shut down half a year to a year later. They go viral, and then they go poof.

None that I've seen.

Must be a European thing...

From the article: "... the project lost another layer of credibility when celebrity chef Eric Greenspan exited late November of 2025. What remains is a clean, well-maintained space that serves unbelievably overpriced products – much like an actual Tesla showroom.” Sick burn.

So useful on Santa Monica Blvd in the middle of LA, the city with the most public EV chargers in the country.

I have zero idea why Tesla didn’t hire an actual restaurant chain to run it for them, like Barnes & Noble and Target does with their cafes that are Starbucks outposts.

If they cut back on those Chinese EV tariffs, this guy would be ruined overnight.. he’s not a genius. He’s not even a talented businessman.

The Tesla Diner is to restaurants what the Cybertruck is to EVs.

TBF, Buc-ee’s is the “anti-truckstop” in the sense that they don’t serve or allow semi trucks. I also agree with your food view, but tried the BBQ sandwich and it was pretty good.

Instead of partnering with roadside restaurants, they do this in the middle of a city. Dumb! Thankfully, we have Buc-ee's expanding throughout the south now.

Neon lights work for a brief tech scam demo but not to win over real people, it seems. WHAT'S THE MATTER, TESLA FANBOYS - DON'T YOU LOVE DADDY ELON ENOUGH? :((

Wtf?! Are those even still up?

They were as of September last year, according to Google Streetview. I haven't seen anything online about them being taken down so I assume they are still there.

Good. those poor people in the neighboring building. hope they get some peace and quiet.

Fun fact: there was a Tesla diner account on Bluesky. It looked legit. Not its a wasteland with no activities. Put it on block a while ago. Could have been a fanboy, but Tesla often does dumb shit if they are desperate, so it wouldn't be unusual. Just like Tesla would NEVER DO ADS... never... and then they did (for Elons $$$)

No lol. If you knew how much they made you would be irate that they're this stupid.

Yes. Obviously lol

Lmao damn, this really got you heated. My bad, I hope your day improves from this.

Just one all-gender bathroom for the whole lot? With a line? Ugh no thank you fElon

Oh I've been studying the Elon stan phenomenon with these gems. The diner isn't even the best one, did you know that Tesla Robotaxi is going to replace every private owned vehicle on earth? We are all just going to pay Tesla if we have to go anywhere. We can still own vehicle IF we choose, but why when we can just Robotaxi?

Just yesterday I was wondering how the diner was doing. Oh well!

Why would you share your profits when you could have 100% of your losses instead? You just don’t understand business!

Elmo approves...

I love helping to support Wisconsin Businesses. But Culver’s is way too much money for my tastes.

:) Our dog became animated whenever we reached the Culver's parking lot -- nothing like a pup cup.

Didn't Tesla always throw shit on the wall and see what sticks? This is the shit.

What? This kind of Vegas-style attraction should be getting business just by proximity to other landmarks.

An extremely expensive to build one-off bespoke designed restaurant from a non-food industry company in an expensive area of LA is getting bad reviews? Noooo.... you don't say.... It is expensive for what you get, but I wouldn't say it's particularly expensive for the LA location and for the fact that it's not a chain, and it's clearly meant to be for Tesla fanatics who are willing to overpay in order to give Tesla a few extra bucks out of their pockets for "the mission". This is basically Tesla's version of an overpriced Disney theme restaurant. Even with overpriced food and chargers, I can only imagine this location is losing a lot of money. I do love that the first thing you see on their website is a button to "Host an Event"... which just screams "struggling to find customers". No doubt that button is for the Tesla fanclubs/meetups, so they can get together, eat, and retain money within the cult. Why give it to another company! It's also pretty clear that this diner was located in LA near two major highway entrances as a start off point for Tesla folks wanting to make the coast to coast cross country drive to prove it can be done on FSD... or some other silliness. These highways are the start of two main highway routes across the US. Which, btw, is totally do-able so long as there aren't any large objects in the road, as we've recently learned... but aren't all that surprised by.

* it's going to be open * It's going to have clean bathrooms  * It's going to be well lit and safe * It's going to have good road food and snack whether you're looking for junk food or something healthy (and Beaver Nuggets are awesome) * It's going to be a safe place for your kid to burn off some energy * It's going to have any last minute small things you need from pajamas and toothbrushes to ice and coolers  * It's big enough to accommodate multiple traveling high school and college teams at once * it's going to have a place with poop bags to walk your dog * Your RV WILL be able to access the gas pumps * If by some chance you want it to be a fast turnaround, there's enough gas pumps you won't have to wait, even on a holiday weekend

I believe the Epic Bacon was eliminated along with most of the menu only weeks after launch. RIP.

If Tesla wants to do good food… they should give me a shout out! We can start with pizza! 😘

It wouldn’t surprise me. I was at a party a year ago in an expensive zip code and I heard these idiots talking about Musk and they were like “He’s so far ahead of everyone” and stupid shit like this. I couldn’t believe anyone could be that delusional and still well-compensated.

That’s so 2020.

Who will Musk blame for this? Certainly not himself

Perhaps he should lean into the Nazi thing more, YouTube metrics show WW2 content is still popular. Many more of a Nazi restaurant.

So much for "Tesla isn't a car company it's a restaurant company" spin.

Why do they have employees? Shouldn't it be staffed with Optimus robots? It would seem the Lincoln animatronic from Disney from 1965, is far more advanced than Tesla's "robots".

Stopped at one, was not that impressed. Well half the bathroom was open and the drinks flat from the fountain and the wait to check out and the brisket guy yelling Every 90 seconds. Not going to do that again.

El\*n pissed off his core customer base, and they left.

I feel so bad for those people. There's a Thunderfoot video where he visits Elon's abandoned project dumps. I don't know anyone who lives next to this future disaster area, but no one deserves this.

I feel like it's probably been empty longer than that. The article is only checking now, six months out.

Man, relax. Its just a car company. Reading your posts I feel like I should sell the car or better scrape it.

Oh no. I thought this was the big thing.

Nice to hear, hopefully Tesla falls this hard this year.

Yes, just scrape it off the bottom of your shoe.

It’s not a car company!! It’s an energy, AI and humanoid robot company!

It's a dumb-ass car company whose owners are stuck in a weird bubble where somehow only Tesla can do EVs, and anything related to EVs, which is why they think having their own diners is a brilliant idea, while everyone else sees how fucking stupid it is.

Not quite. The popcorn was served by the bots though.

Yeah perfectly doable now unless...... Road damage/defects Rain Snow Angle of sun Dirt/debris accumulation on cameras Lack of automated charging Unexpected variables/scenarios it can't handle yet Easy Peasy.......

Wait....Elon is fine with multiple genders in the same bathroom, interesting.

This is the opposite of the truth.

I just charged my car there. They want $9 for a plain hot dog. $6 for a cookie that would cost half that at Starbucks. And the charger was slower than what I was using on I-5 in the trip from Sacramento to LA. As for the screens, they had two black and white twilight zones and “dagger of the mind” from Star Trek. I walked around the corner to La Brea and had McDonalds.