Yesterday I spent five hours in line with Tesla superfans to figure out why they were at the grand opening of the new Tesla supercharging station/ retrofuturistic diner in West Hollywood. People going to Mars definitely need to eat something, right? said Chris, who goes by @dogetipping on X. So, I bet that's the first step, you know, eating and charging. That's pretty essential for, like, Mars life. Chris had showed up to the diner in his DOGE-wrapped Cybertruck, with his girlfriend in the passenger seat on her laptop. He said she had no interest in whatever was going on.Musk has recently been trying to rehabilitate his image after funnelling money to the Trump administration and putting a bunch of recent children in charge of instrumental functions of government through DOGE. Like many of the activities of the richest man in the world, the diner seems to have been inspired by his own tweet. The building itself looks like a big grey hockey puck, and is fenced in on its lot by two huge screens which reach the rooftops of the adjoining apartment complexes.I arrived just before lunchtime to find around two dozen people lined up on foot, and the building surrounded by barricades. A group of die-hard Musk fans told me theyd been there since 7 a.m. Theyd heard it would open at 4:20 p.m., a reference to, I believe, some marijuana thing that Musk does all the time, according to Morgan Hammar, who was at the front of the line. Fans were waiting for IRL peeks of the things theyd seen advertised on X - a humanoid Optimus robot serving popcorn, and $35 Supercharged Gummies.People waiting in line for the diner to open on MondayHammar, an elementary-school educator, told me he and his family own five Teslas: three model Ys, a Model 3, and a Cybertruck. He said that the opening was a very monumental day for us, the Tesla community.Tesla's been under a lot of, kind of, pressure, and this is just a moment that is really positive, he said. I hate that we even have to talk about that [...] Tesla should be above all politics, in my opinion. It's good for the environment if that's what appeals to you, but it's also just an unbelievable vehicle, and it's shaking hands with the future.Tesla owners and dealerships have faced online backlash and in-person protests since Musks alignment with Trump, the creation of DOGE, and Musks choice to perform Nazi salutes at the inauguration earlier this year. In the strongest terms possible, you should not be throwing rocks through windows and burning down Tesla showrooms because you're upset at Elon Musk. So I'm opposed to whatever that is, said Hammar, who described himself as politically neutral.He reasoned that Musk aligned himself with Trump because he is driven by a greater mission, he said. He knows that in order for Tesla to be successful America must be strong. And remember, he's driven by repopulating Mars.Episodes of The Jetsons played on repeat on the two giant screens facing the building throughout the day, interspersed with Tesla ads and other shows including Looney Toons and an episode of The Mindy Project. At 4:20 p.m., once the barricades came down, rollerskating waitresses offered soft serve with Cybertruck-inspired spoons to those waiting in line, evoking an era of sock-hops and date shakes but if everyone wore mirrored Oakleys.All of my favorite aesthetic features of classic American dinersthe cracked red leather seats, beaten chrome edges, faded formicaare absent at the Tesla diner, replaced with smooth monochrome plastic and a lot of screens. Everything is black or white, giving strong managed apartment your dad rents after the divorce energy. Tesla fans I spoke to had different taste. I really love the Jetson vibe, and I can see the outer space in the design that I didnt know was going to be here, said Janine Smith, who also said that she loved her Tesla but is disappointed in how political Elon has been lately.Inside the diner, and @DogeTipping's CybertruckTesla owners were allowed to jump the queue as they arrived to charge their vehicles. I got inside the diner around 5:30 p.m., but ended up separated from a family who had been behind me in the line, who waited about another hour. Every person working front of house at the Tesla diner was incredibly upbeat, which makes sense for a grand opening. Sarah, the hospitality manager of the Tesla Diner, said that things were going incredibly well. We just hired a bunch of happy people and gave them something shiny and new.The menu was a Tesla-fied version of standard diner fare: items like Wagyu burgers, tallow fries, biscuits with red gravy, and Epic Bacon. I asked a nearby child for a review of her chicken tendersunderwhelming. Theyre ok, theyre not, like, my favourite. I dont know what it is, but, you know. She said her drink was weird. The diner is serving its own house-made drinks including cane sugar cola and a range of Charged Sodas with natural green coffee extracts. Her dad described the drink theyd chosen as tasting like an Otter Pop. All the food was served in Cybertruck-shaped boxes, which people immediately started wearing on their heads, obviously an unshakeable behavioral instinct learned at Burger King. Optimus serving popcorn, and a Cybertruck burger boxI was curious what the neighbors thought of the new arrival, so I wrote down my phone number really big and waved it up at Irma Velasco, a nurse practitioner, who was hanging out on her balcony. She permitted me to come up to her apartment to take some photos of the view. She said she is pleased that the huge drive-in screens will now be the background to her home office, as she likes movies. The screens will show short films all day until 9 p.m., when a feature film will play, and they will turn off at 11 p.m. nightly. Velasco says that she now feels validated in her neighborhood selection. I think its made the area cooler Elons a smart man, she said. For him to choose this spot makes me feel like I made the right choice by staying here. I feel like he chose the spot for a reason.The view from Irma Velasco's apartment buildingVelasco might not be totally representative of locals sentiment, however. She told me her neighbors recently called the police due to noise from the vast screens, but she says she doesnt agree that it was loud. It was the day Musk came to visit, but she missed him because she was distracted watching Star Wars on the screens from her balcony. She points to the opposite building, where, currently, a Tesla ad is obscuring four stories of apartment windows. I know theyre not happy, though.Inside the diner, a bunch of different merch is available, including Tesla diner baseball caps, pins, ornamental lights, Cybertruck models, salt shakers, and tshirts. One of the merch vendors told me that the days best-seller was the $50 Optimus doll.A common theme among people I spoke to was that this diner will improve the experience of owning a Tesla, providing a unique location for Tesla owners to hang out and meet each other in a Tesla-friendly space.John Stringer runs Tesla Owners Silicon Valley, the countrys biggest online community for Tesla owners. We had members literally getting their cars vandalized and keyed because of what the CEO was doing, he said. You spend your hard earned money on something and it's not a political statement. The community has been through a lot, he said. And so really the community bonded together to really share, you know, just the love of these products together.Around the back of the diner, by the rows of superchargers on the charging side of the forecourt, a group of Tesla fans were comparing their longest Tesla drives. An example of an interaction I overheard: Have you driven cross-country yet? Yeah, I usually do it once or twice a year. Its great. I asked to use their real names, but they were not willing to be identified. They described themselves as nerds. Well show up for any Elon activity. As we were talking, a car drove past and someone yelled Fuck Tesla! The assembled Tesla nerds looked around. Hes driving a Kia, someone laughed.The diner will alert nearby Tesla owners to its presence and encourage them to order food from the car before they arrive. Ordering from the car wasnt working around 6 p.m., but it looks like it was by the evening. Several people told me that the functionality of listening to the drive-in movie audio inside of their car was working, and that it was really cool.Some of the food options available at the diner, being prepared by human chefsTracy Kuss is another superfan who was attending the opening with her son. She told me shes been waiting for the opening for as long as Musk has been talking about it online. She was very excited about the new menu. I want chicken and waffles, that's my first choice, she said. (Later, as she was leaving, she gave a glowing review of the biscuits and red gravy).Kuss was excited about the theoretical technological possibilities represented by the humanoid Optimus robot. Upstairs at the diner, the robot served popcorn to the crowd, who were excited to interact with it. The robot struggled to separate the popcorn containers or pick them up, but was good at filling the containers with popcorn once handed one. One guy prompted his friend to keep topping up his popcornask him to give you a little moreand it did. When this generation of Optimus robots were first demoed last year, they were assisted by humans behind the scenes. I caught up with Hammar and his family as they left, around 6:30 p.m. It was excellent, he said. Well worth the wait.