Kings Road Coffee and Café — Restaurant in Los Angeles

Rating the food here is hard for someone who's been a patron for 20 years because the rating slides based on the cost. Sure, the eggs toast and potatoes are tasty. Meatless, for $15? +$4 for bacon?I mean how many stars can you give that?

In April 2025 there was a blanket increase in all prices at KRC. As a person who studied economics, you should consider the narrative of the price increase against the reality of those increases: an instant, 25% increase across the board in menu items is not how you mitigate business costs, as the narrative suggests. It would be a much smaller percentage if the narrative were true.

Take the coffee for example. It used to be $4. I think you can conservatively say KRC will sell at least 20 coffees an hour. So prior to the increase last month, they grossed $4x20 = $80/hr x 8 hrs= $640 day x 6 = $3840 x 4 = $15360 Gross a month in coffee.

Now, to "mitigate business costs" KRC coffee went from $4 to $5...a 25% increase to one item. Using the same math as above: $5 x 20 = $100/hr x 8hts = $800 day x 6 = $4800 x 4 = $19,200 Gross a month in coffee.

That's an extra $4000 gross per month, just for coffees.

To put this in perspective, if you work a corporate job and are up for a promotion, you will get 3%, 5%, unheard of maybe 7%. In no way are you getting an instantaneous 25% increase to your salary.

If our gas went up 25% from the $4.69 it is, your gas would be $5.86. Could you conceive of waking up tomorrow and seeing gas for $5.86? There would be riots. When it goes up $0.10, it makes the news.

If Kings Road particularly cared about mitigating the cost of business but also being fair to its customers, that cost of a coffee would have went from $4 to $4.30. A blanket raise of 25% to the cost of a coffee, while selling hundreds of them a day, is simply taking advantage.

This review is meaningless, every seat outside will be taken every day with people happy to spend their money there. Good for them. But remember, these increases are not to mitigate business costs. It is a gratuitous raise in prices. Two eggs toast, bacon and potatoes for $19?.. more...

Incredibly disappointing experience.

4 of us showed up and each ordered a plate; my friend ordered extra pancakes. Food was decent with the exception of 1 member who sent his entire plate back of Avocado Toast due to stale bread. After food was delivered, the server did not show up once for follow up on coffee, etc. We actually had to waive down service (to order a to-go plate for a friend back home); the servers were sitting down talking to one another.

When the server brought the check, she confirmed the items on the touchscreen device. The server then flipped the machine which showed a total of $150 and then asked for tip options of 15%, 18%, etc. Due to the sub-par experience, I opted to tip lower and pressed Custom which then showed a price breakdown, and to my surprise, a 18% tip had already been applied (sever made no mention of this)!

I questioned 1) why she did not inform me tip was applied before showing me a screen asking for additional tip and 2) why was a tip automatically applied in the first place. She said that her system "automatically tips" on parties of 6 or more - we were a party of four. Her response was that we "ordered 6 plates" [the extra side of pancakes and a to-go order]. Apparently no manager was on site to dispute and we "needed to call back another day".

Absolutely ridiculous tactics and poor service. Please folks, watch out for this restaurant applying automatic tips on small parties, and then asking for additional tips on top. This situation is another example why California has just passed a law to crack down on these...

We came for the new later hours Wednesday through Saturday and Happy Hour...on a weekday (not Friday or Saturday). We came in thinking that the pizza was half off for Happy Hour, but that was not the case.

We both had pasta dishes. My friend had 2 glasses of wine. The only special discount pricing is that the beer is discounted if you order a pizza. It would be nice if there was also a discount deal for wine. Since there wasn't, we didn't order a pizza. It might be nice...for Happy Hour...if there was a discount on drinks if you order meals (regardless of whether it's pizza or a different dinner entree like pasta dinners). I personally don't drink beer or wine, so having sangria would be nice.

I do not like when you're given 3 tipping choices on the digital equipment at the end of the meal and the lowest choice is 20 percent. The lowest choice should be 15 percent...which is plenty. People shouldn't be forced to choose "other" to leave less than a 20 percent tip and then have to calculate what it should be...that's annoying. Anyway, tips belong to the waiter and they get minimum wage too, so no reason to upset customers when the restaurant does not benefit from pushing/coercing excessive tipping.

We had 2 people serving us, a man and a woman, and they were both great. We sat on the cafe side (there is also a restaurant side), which is quieter and you can spread out more...also a TV with sports...the French Open was on. The food was excellent and the atmosphere was...