Tesla and Elon Musk Are Bringing an Old-School Drive-In to Hollywood

The tech CEO tweeted his intentions in 2018, and now Tesla appears to have a location and a blueprint.

If you had the money, the time, and the inclination, which of your random tweets would you bring to life? For Elon Musk, the world’s richest and most online man, it appears to be a whimsical concept from 2018, to turn one of the forthcoming Tesla Supercharger stations in LA into an “old-school drive-in,” with roller skates and all. According to a report from electrek and Twitter user @MarcoRPtesla, Tesla, the electric car and energy company where Musk has served as CEO since 2008, has filed plans to build a 29-stall supercharger station and a combined restaurant and drive-in theater on Santa Monica Blvd just east of La Brea Ave.

The location is currently a Shakey’s Pizza, which would presumably have to close and then be demolished before Musk’s American Graffiti fantasy can be brought to life. The plans call for a two-story restaurant, with a bar and seating on the first floor, and another bar and some theater seating on the second floor. There is no indication yet about the menu or type of food to be served, but with two bars on the property we can only hope it will be hearty enough to help keep all those Tesla drivers from needing their autopilot.

The plans also include two large screens along the North and West edges of the restaurant that will be visible both by people seated upstairs and from cars charging in the drive-in section. The screens are supposed to play 30-minute features, designed to last around as long as it takes for an average charging session. It’s not clear exactly what that means, but would Musk perhaps consider using some of his fortune to get the Quibi band back together?

Those drive-in spots will also feature carhop service so customers can recharge alongside their vehicles. That is also presumably where the roller skates come in. The charging stations will be geared towards Tesla drivers, of course, but there will also be five spaces reserved for level two chargers, which are compatible with non-Tesla electric vehicles.

These are preliminary blueprints, and as anyone who has been in or around the restaurant business knows, there are a lot of steps between here and the grand opening. But with this restaurant it seems that Musk intends to solve two problems of his own creation: what do you do while your Tesla charges, and how can everyone else avoid as many Tesla drivers as possible?

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Ben Mesirow is an Echo Park native who writes TV, fiction, food, and sports. At one time or another, his writing has appeared in The LA TimesLitroMcSweeney’s Internet TendencyLos Angeles Magazine, and scratched into dozens of desks at Walter Reed Middle School.