Re/creation Cafe — Restaurant in Los Angeles

If you’re looking for a place to work in the day, a good breakfast burrito + a friendly working staff — this place is nice. There aren’t a ton of spots like this in Mid City/West Adams and the outdoor / indoor mix makes it unique. It’s overpriced for the area + lacks a good parking option, but it’s OK as a restaurant.

If you’re looking for a “community space” like this spot touts itself, to hold a meetup — this isn’t it. In fact, my attempt to do one here on a Thursday at 6 PM, a time where there were only 3 other tables occupied in an open seating layout of a huge space, was met with the owner cornering me to reprimand me for having people sit down to introduce themselves and moving tables that weren’t occupied and aren’t even assigned since you pay in front and get a number — it’s open seating with no waiter.

For context I co-run a national Asian American creative nonprofit filled with members who work in entertainment marketing, events and live music who would potentially pay to use this space in the future too.

I picked this spot for our meetup in an effort to invest more in local biz. I’ve eaten here before and thought was cute. I also wanted to provide a spot for the meetup that wasn’t liquor focused. I emailed several times with the owner Nick to explain what I was trying to do, a mentorship meetup with 10-20 people. We always make our meetups casual so people can come + go as they please. We spoke on the phone and it seemed fine. I got there and the staff was nice and accommodating, but surprisingly the owner Nick who I was in contact with accosted me after being cordial at first, and went out of his way to make me feel uncomfortable for bringing a community event to a space that brands itself as a community space. I was hosting the event so I didn’t have time to survey the seating patterns of open seating as I was facilitating intros with the members. He asked several people who came in to join our group “when is this over” and upon accosting me, we fixed the tables and chairs that were moved and apologized to him, letting him know there was no malice we were just introducing each other.

Instead of being cool and moving on — he doubled down and accused me of lying about what type of event this was which was untrue — this was a happy hour meetup at an open seating restaurant with no waiters and at that time, barely any customers other than us who were segregated to the back in our own little area of a huge space. He then said I misrepresented the amount of people which cracked me up — dude, it’s LA at 6-8 PM, no one knows who will and won’t show up at that time because of traffic. Also, I’ve never heard the owner of a local biz on a dead night complain that people came into their establishment and purchased food and drinks. I brought him business and he literally made me feel like we were trying to swindle him.

I attached some pics here to show you us sitting down to intro each other + then when we got up and bought food and drinks. Since the prices are not cheap - I’d estimate they did OK from the 20+ people who ended up coming. I’ve never had a biz owner speak to me that way and the cocky pompousness he hit me with when I apologized, was even crazier. He mentioned “we would never allow this to happen, you could have purchased our event space” — look at the pics, they speak for themselves.

This spot is the furthest thing from a community biz + frankly, just bad management. I’ve worked in service before and currently run multiple yearly events in NYC + LA — we’ve never run into this kind of issue.

During a time where small biz needs the boost more than ever — I couldn’t believe he not only acted like that, but couldn’t get over his ego enough even after I apologized, to rectify this non-issue.

This is NOT a community space and I’d rather give my money to Highly Likely or another biz in the area that doesn’t treat the people of the community who actually live in it, like trash. Based off that interaction: a hard pass for me. I’d rather take my money elsewhere and...

Wonderful Cozy Cafe (with a catch if you don’t mind it)

So I’ve eaten here about close to 10 times usually on Friday-Sunday.

My go to: cornbread waffle with ricotta and fruits, sweet potato fries with sauce, and any of the teas, fish tacos.

Food consistency: 4/5 - generally the food that comes out and tastes okay like it could be cooked longer. And sometimes it tastes good. (See photos for the changes)

Fish taco is a good size for a semi light meal. Sweet potatoes fries is baked then fried again- taste delicious, great for by yourself and with the crowd!

Specifically since we get the waffle each time without fail we can see how much they range on the fruits.. from maybe 2 strawberries and a few blueberries and one slice of banana to 3x that amount. Sometimes the waffle comes out barely finished cooking and other times just right. 😅 I would say 7/10 times they are good.

Ambiance: 10/10 - it can get loud at times. They limit computer use here. Otherwise great place to hang with friends and groups. Family welcome here too. Even seen Church groups here too.

Service: 8/10 - sometimes they forget your orders or bring it when it is already cold..or ask what did you get.. and most time they remember you need your order. They try their best.

Parking: Not difficult around lunch time Friday-Sunday. Street parking, can park alongside on the wide street or residential street.

Restroom: Yes, handicap friendly for the most part with large space and accessibility bars. The sink height might be challenge, depends on user. They do provide...

It was going to be a 4-5 star until one of the employee/manager/possibly owner? said we can’t take up two tables to do work there. Would have been totally understandable if it was bustling and there weren’t more than 1-2 empty tables. But there were at least 8-9 empty tables… we had been working there for 3-4 hours, gotten a meal each and 4 drinks between the two of us and were about to order more. But that just made us both feel unwelcome and icky honestly. They aren’t really welcoming of laptops I guess but were “already making an exception” because it wasn’t busy…they usually don’t allow it on weekends when it’s busy just fyi. We are both medical professionals and are often working on lectures or notes and always appreciate when we can find a comfortable location with both coffee and wine and good food and a lively environment. We were so excited at first but then he came and burst our bubble. Womp womp…on to...