Images: Tesla’s Upcoming Diner Is Reshaping Hollywood Skyline

Amid Elon Musk’s current blitzkrieg of presidency spending cuts, the billionaire Tesla founder has concurrently been making quiet, breakneck progress on a completely totally different enterprise enterprise — the long-awaited Tesla Diner & Drive-In.

The Los Angeles-based undertaking dates again to 2018, when Musk first mused on-line about an old-school 24-hour restaurant spot that may serve diner meals and supply leisure choices for Tesla drivers needing to cost their electrical autos.

Seven years later, Musk’s imaginative and prescient of a twin dining-charging spot has come to fruition. Looming tall over a busy Hollywood block, the location boasts two towering 45-foot LED film screens and dozens of V4 Supercharger stalls, in addition to a saucer-shaped, open-air rooftop sitting beneath Los Angeles’ dependable sunshine.

As a former Enterprise Insider reporter and West Hollywood resident, I spent one Friday morning earlier this month investigating the surprisingly quiet building website forward of the diner’s still-unknown opening.

This is what I noticed.

The location takes up a complete road nook on a busy part of Santa Monica Boulevard.

The Tesla Diner & Drive-In sits on the north aspect of LA’s well-known Santa Monica Boulevard, which runs from the Sundown Junction all the best way to the Pacific Ocean. The plot extends backward onto N Orange Drive.

The location is close to two of the busiest intersections in Hollywood, and just a few blocks from the 101 Freeway, the place lots of of hundreds of drivers enter and exit visitors every day. The prime locale and simple freeway entry performs within the diner’s favor.

Earlier than being reworked into Musk’s retro-futuristic restaurant, the land was house to a Shakey’s Pizza.

In August 2023, the Los Angeles County Division of Constructing and Security authorized plans for the Tesla diner. Development had moved rapidly within the year-and-a-half since. It seems to be practically finished.

Tesla and the engineering and structure agency engaged on the undertaking, Stantec, did not reply to BI’s requests for details about the completion or opening date of the restaurant.

I used to be stunned by how quiet the development website appeared for a Friday morning.

I spent about twenty minutes perusing the diner’s road nook, peering by way of the chain-link fence surrounding your complete enclosure. The graffiti-covered fence was coated by a tattered fabric, seemingly meant to maintain looky-loos like me from snooping.

Damaged items of the material cowl, nonetheless, allowed me a peek backstage, the place I noticed 4 building employees milling about. Two males stood chatting with each other on-site for the whole thing of my twenty-minute go to, whereas two others labored independently on varied tasks across the constructing.

I noticed one non-public safety guard standing exterior the location.

The safety guard, who was sporting an “Allied Common Safety” jacket, was standing on N Orange Drive, presumably watching over the location’s aspect entrance.

The good younger man informed me he had “no thought” when the diner was imagined to open. Value a shot!

The unmissable focal factors of the location are its two towering video screens.

In an X publish final month, Tesla investor Sawyer Merritt described the large constructions as 45-foot LED film screens. Musk responded to the publish, “It will likely be cool.”

I did not convey my tape measure to substantiate their measurements, however I can verify they’re looming in each sense of the phrase.

A 2022 constructing allow for the diner stated the screens would present half-hour-long movies — simply sufficient time for a Tesla driver to cost up, The New York Instances reported earlier this yr.

Extra not too long ago, Musk has stated the screens will present previous film clips, contributing to the location’s retro ambiance.

In 2023, he posted on X that the vibe of the house will probably be “Grease meets Jetsons with Supercharging.”

The 2 screens sit on diagonal ends of the half-acre complicated, each wrapped in a metallic exterior.

I may see the again of one of many screens from a couple of blocks away.

I walked a mile from West Hollywood for my pilgrimage to the Tesla Diner & Drive-In. As I used to be approaching the location from a couple of blocks west, I first noticed the again of one of many large video screens.

I did not know what the big construction within the sky was on my preliminary strategy, however I snapped this pic on my stroll again, after having witnessed the large screens up shut.

This is a view of one of many screens straight on.

This specific display sits to the aspect of the diner constructing. The opposite display is positioned out of lens, again and to the best.

The constructing itself is a silver-toned, saucer-like construction with geometric thrives.

A few of the fancy charging stations had been all able to go.

Throughout my go to to the location, I noticed dozens of shiny, white, Tesla-branded charging stations beginning to be put in within the diner’s paved car parking zone.

Finally, the location will probably be house to greater than 75 V4 Supercharger stalls, Merritt stated in his March replace on X.

At the same time as Tesla takes Musk-related hits in current weeks, Los Angeles stays an EV-friendly locale.

Musk’s EV firm has felt the burn of his foray into politics, with Tesla gross sales plunging 13% within the first three months of 2025 — the firm’s worst quarter for the reason that first three months of 2022. Inventory is down greater than 36% in 2025.

In the meantime, Tesla autos, dealerships, and charging stations throughout the nation have been the websites of vandalism and protests since Trump was inaugurated.

When the diner does open, it’s going to be laborious to overlook — whether or not by drivers in search of a cost or protesters who’ve made Tesla places floor zero for expressing their discontent at Elon Musk’s rising political affect.