Elon Musk gets ready to enter the restaurant business

Tesla would build a diner in Los Angeles, he described it as "Grease meets Jetsons with Supercharging." As he has often done, he put his finger on a major piece of culture ripe for reinvention — in this case, gas-station dining in the age of electric cars, which need longer to recharge than it takes to top off a tank — and put a visionary, gee-whiz spin on it.

That was before the chain saw. Before DOGE and the "fork in the road" email and the what-did-you-do-last-week email. Before anti-Musk protests at Tesla dealerships became weekly occurrences in Los Angeles and other cities. Before the White House promised to treat vandalism against Teslas as domestic terrorism. Before a 50 percent drop in Tesla's stock price took shareholders on a fast ride from "gee-whiz" to "look out below."

All of which have made Tesla's foray into restaurants a far more loaded prospect than it seemed a short time ago.

When Caroline Styne and Suzanne Goin, who own the Lucques Group of restaurants in Los Angeles, fielded an inquiry from Tesla in 2023 about operating the diner, they decided against it. The restaurant wouldn't have a liquor license, Styne said, which made the economics challenging, and besides, "we're not drive-in diner kind of people."When Caroline Styne and Suzanne Goin, who own the Lucques Group of restaurants in Los Angeles, fielded an inquiry from Tesla in 2023 about operating the diner, they decided against it. The restaurant wouldn't have a liquor license, Styne said, which made the economics challenging, and besides, "we're not drive-in diner kind of people."

"We said, 'We're in the land of Tesla; why don't we see if they would like to put some charging stations in our parking lot?'" Danny Meyer, who helped found Shake Shack, recalled. The electric-vehicle maker wasn't interested at the time, Meyer said.

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He said he had not been in talks about the diner project and probably would not take it on.

Before his restaurants enter agreements with museums, ballparks and the like, Meyer said, "we ask ourselves if our piece of art belongs in that frame." As for Tesla, "That's not a frame I would choose," he said. "I might have 10 years ago because I think it had a different shine on it at that point." Back then, the brand "was all about the environment. It seemed like a pretty cool thing."

Chef Paul Kahan, of One Off Hospitality in Chicago, said he would not be interested in working with Musk's company for several reasons. "I prefer to stay out of the madness and lean into unity," he said.