The Tesla Diner’s Real Failure

Photographs by Yasara Gunawardena

The spiral staircase leading up to the roof-deck at Los Angeles’s Tesla Diner is beautiful, or at least it is expensive-looking. It has video screens overhead and glowy lights at the base of each step and its own special soundtrack, a down-tempo, bleepy-bloopy composition that whooshes in as a notable contrast to the main dining room’s dad rock. Glass display cases set into the walls hold human-size robots. Otherwise, every surface is covered in slick plastic, pure white. Like a lot of spaces these days, the staircase seems engineered to facilitate selfies.

When I visited one evening last month, an employee was stationed at the top of the stairs with a request: Those interested in returning to Earth should please take the elevator down. The staircase is