LACMA Cafe

Came here for coffee while exploring the LACMA and it was pretty good.
Plenty of outdoor seating and a nice break from the exhibits.
Service was nice, the prices pretty high though.
Coffee was good, nothing special, but fueled me through another few hours here.
Nice and simple café, very clean and well kept, did the job.

My girlfriend came here for a quick coffee break. We were headed to grab some lunch but were in the mood for a caffeine pick me up before heading off. Pleasantly surprised to find the little café nestled behind the LACMA. Lots of people enjoying a snack inside and outside. Ordered a latte and my friend got an espresso. Tad high in prices but when you need coffee, who cares! I need it. Quality pretty good Like the convenience of being right outside the museum doors.

Delish and not over priced!!! It looks like a cafeteria type of place, but the food taste different than expected. The food was really good, the options was for any taste buds including vegan. I will definitely be back next time I come visit LACMA!

Really really good coffee. I was surprised that a venue like this could make a a decent cup seeing how much foot traffic they must have. Did not have a chance to try anything else. Maybe next time.

Food is overpriced which Is understandable.
The cashier isn’t friendly, her tone sounds like she doesnt care.
Other Customers are very rude to us with seatings.
Food didn’t taste good.
Food took too long because there was only one guy preparing our meal
I don’t think I will ever eat here.

Saw a hot guy with amazing eyes and eye lashes who slightly reminded me of Nicholas Cage working here but never saw him again :(

Came on a week night for a few drinks and appetizer. We were seated right away and place our orders. Our pizza came out fairly quickly but our drinks were no where to be found. We started eating before our drinks came out? We asked our waiter on the status. Again it took a while for us to get our drinks. We were half way done with our meals before it came. I did enjoy our pizza but service was not so good. Not sure what the hold up was. The area is a great place to people watch. There’s a park area towards the back with people walking their dogs. Also the front is the LACMA lights. We stayed long enough to see them turn on. Gorgeous!

I recently visited LACMA and had lunch at the café. I was expecting the food to be sub par since that’s typically been my experience with food in art museums, but I was pleasantlhy surprised with the quality of their food and the overall dining experience. They had several food options, including a salad bar, grill, and specialty hot items like fish, chicken, pasta, soup etc.
I ordered the chicken panini which was served warm, and the chicken was very moist and well seasoned. I also had a Coolhaus ice cream sandwich, which I loved! I’ve only been able to find them at the Coolhaus store and Whole Foods, so seeing it at the café was a nice surprise. Did I mention they also have a frozen yogurt machine? Bonus points!
The next time I come to LACMA, I will make sure to have lunch at the café again.

Try the affogato! One of the BEST coffee drinks I’ve ever had here… it’s where they have espresso poured over vanilla ice-​cream and the result was delectable. After being on my feet for 5 or more hours, sitting down and recharging my phone while drinking this fueled me up for a couple more galleries.

We were hungry after exploring all the exhibits at the LACMA, so we swung by this café for some food and drinks. It’s cafeteria style, where you go to the counters to pick out what you want to eat, then go to the check-​out person to pay for your order, get a #, and then find a seat to sit down. Once your order is made, they’ll bring the hot food to you at your table based on the # you received.
My husband ordered:
(1) Angus Cheeseburger $ 9.50 — he enjoyed the burger, it was OK; not too shabby :)
(2) Coca cola bottle $ 3.75 — so expensive! haha but it’s in a glass bottle
Bus your trays after you finish.

My grilled chicken sandwich had hardly any chicken on it. One of my son’s got a pre-​packaged chicken sandwich that turned out to be tuna. My other son had a cheeseburger. At least it looked like a cheeseburger. The set up isn’t that great. You wonder around the small ordering area and the people behind the counter don’t take your order. Someone else has to come out and take it. Not very organized. At least the water tasted like water. My bottle of Fiji was sealed.

Best meat lovers pizza I have ever had. It was so perfect! The bread was amazing, the toppings savory and delicious, the salad was fresh and delicious and so was the fruit! Excellent!

It’s an okay option for a quick snack while visiting LACMA, the Page Museum, or the Tar Pits. They have a nice selection of chips, sandwiches, and Tazo Teas, but you’ll pay dearly for it. But since the vending machines on the Page side of the park are sorely in need of maintenance, it’s the only option for a quick stop on the site. Plan better to save you pennies!

I expected to pay more for it being a museum café, so no complaints there. I went for a coffee and thought, hey, a mocha sounds nice, great to hear that they can do it with almond milk. It came out fairly quickly. I had a sip and… it was lukewarm and bitter. Tasted like someone had put some powdered baking chocolate into some watered down almond milk and then frothed it a bit and then let it sit for a while. I tried adding a bit of sugar, then a full packet, then another… and sweetening it brought out a distinctly bad flavor.
I tried having another sip and just dealing with it, but… ugh, it was actually undrinkable. I have been learning to use a french press at home and having all sorts of terrible coffee experiences, and I have had microwaved instant coffee before, and drank it anyway. This one took the cake. So I brought it up to the counter and said that it had no sugar, was lukewarm, and tasted terrible. The person at the counter gave a canned answer that it was because they use artisan chocolates and if I had a problem I could take it up with the barrista. I just threw it out and opted for no coffee. If that’s how bad their mocha was, I can’t imagine their just plain coffee being any less repellant.
Go east a few blocks to Black Dog Coffee instead, where they are awesome and the coffee is just fine (don’t know about their mochas though)!

If you’re looking for a reasonably priced lunch, this is your only option on the LACMA campus unless there are food trucks parked across the street. The pastas and salads would probably have been a better bet but the turkey sandwich was nothing special and the vegan burger was far too spicy.
The food runner really hustles to bring out the food but we had to track down food order takers in order to place our order. I’d say our lunch here was pretty disappointing.

Terrible food…
Vegan burger was hard as a rock… returned and asked for a regular cheese burger medium, and after 20 mins got a well done patty with no cheese or buns!!! The vegetables were overlooked and tasteless. A lady in front of us ended up getting a fully raw burger which she returned.
Either they need better chefs or just need to stick to art. Don’t recommend at all!

This café is one of the dining establishments at LACMA and is probably is the most popular since it has casual cafeteria style dining fare including hotdogs, hamburgers, pizza, sandwiches, salads, etc. Perfect for kids and adults with seating inside and outside. The actual cafeteria portion in the back of the café is small so it was getting pretty crowded and chaotic. There was one worker who was kind of scurrying around asking people «are you ready to order?» which was stressful. We ordered a hamburger, hot dog, and a pizza, which were all pretty tasty and signature Patina style dining. However, service needs to improve DRASTICALLY! Our food took a long time to come and our waiter didn’t bring all of our food the first trip to our table so we had to wait even longer for the rest of our food. The tables were sticky and gross from the previous diners-​wish the café workers would clean them up periodically for sanitation purposes.
It’s kind of pricy, but hey, it’s museum food and its conveniently located on the LACMA campus. Nice variety of food and a long salad bar (for all you salad lovers). Good place to bring kids to eat. Just wish service would improve!!!

As with most museum eats, LACMA Café serves decent but overpriced food. The good thing is that you can get hot food and adult beverages in one place without leaving the LACMA campus, and on that rare rainy day in LA you can eat inside (albeit you may have to stalk a few tables as you would if you were at Father’s Office).
The café has premade salads and sandwiches, as well as panini, pizza, and burgers/​dogs. They also have a kids menu. Don’t be suckered into the Margherita Pizza. It’s just regular pizza with a little bit of basil, sliced tomato on top, and lots of garlic. No fresh buffalo mozzarella and no San Marzano sauce. It wasn’t bad by any means, but not that exciting and not a $ 9.75 value. The kids chicken fingers were good and came with a substantial portion of melon (choice of sides include fries, veggies, and fruit).
The ordering system here is really strange. It looks like it would be cafeteria style where you order from the individual food stations. Instead, you wander around, decide what you want, and a server writes down your order. You grab whatever drinks and premade food you want and take those along with a ticket to the cashier. During busy times, the place gets packed and just ordering/​paying can be an ordeal. After ordering they give you a number (a little plastic deal like they used to have at Carl’s Jr. back in the day rather than a number on a metal rod like you find at Corner Bakery) and you place it on your table. The people delivering the food are fairly clueless. Seeing the guy look completely lost and noticing AC’s kids meal on his tray, I waved my hand and number and the guy came to our table and walked away. He came back again with all our food, did the same drill, and I had to almost physically stop him so we could get our food. He didn’t speak a word (of English, Spanish, or otherwise), but seemed resigned to give us our food. Sheesh!

Renamed. No longer Plaza Café. It’s LACMA Café.
Great service and this is basically a buffet — still the crew looks out for you here and helps. Nice variety of food, it’s not all junk. It’s just simple and fresh and makes a better option than just about anything else on the museum grounds — unless you want to go more fancy. And it’s quick.
Had a tasty Turkey BLT. Kids meal includes fruit or I think chips. They have a number of beverages — beer and wine the only alcohol. Mexican Coke and Fanta is nice to see, but not at 3.75! Very kid friendly.

We were starving and didn’t want to leave the museum so opted to try the Plaza Café. Kind of weird how their set up/​ordering process works. It’s kind of cafeteria style where you go up to the counter and order at whichever station you want to order from but the menu is right above the stations so we just sort of stood there trying to decide what to get.
When we finally decided, one of the workers actually took our order and gave us a paper to pay at the register. Ended up ordering the: Grilled Cheese with Tomato, Avocado & Bacon, LACMA Cheeseburger and Grilled All Beef Hot Dog.
The Grilled cheese didn’t really have much cheese in it. lols but it was grilled nicely and pretty good. Also got a salad for my side, which came with no dressing -.- just went back to the food area and grabbed some ranch. Also tried some of the all beef hot dog and cheeseburger and both were good. I really liked their fries too.
Overall, expensive food but at least it was decent.