The Colony Cafe

I recently began taking better care if my health and always remembered this small café where the waitstaff was always nice and the food was fresh, healthy, fun, comforting and satisfying. After years of coming for work lunches, I wanted to bring my wife and make it a regular go to place to stay on track in my journey to stay healthy but sadly discovered it has closed. I wish the staff and owners much love and luck in their future ventures and hope the best for them. I know that if they pursue anything half as wonderful as The Colony Café they will be on the right track. RIP The Colony Café it will be missed — July 2015.

I passed by and noticed a few people standing outside and I guess they didn’t know The Colony Café closed.
Neither did I.
I’m really not sorry they closed because I always felt they were extremely overpriced.
Wonder what will take its place?

Pay upfront so there was no choice but to tip. This place was very ordinary. The coffee was weak our meal was served on the plastic base of a takeout container and plastic cutlery! All for restaurant prices. Will never go back.

I have seen this joint forever, but never had the opportunity to try it until today. Nice people run this place, but sadly the food is mediocre for the price. The best thing is that you just order at the counter, and don’t have to deal with any wait staff. Atmosphere is lacking something, feels like a place on the verge of going out of business. Nevertheless, the owner is a down to earth, friendly guy.

I go to this place out of convenience, it’s down the street and I can order on my phone. The food is alright. It draws people mostly from the charm of the restaurant décor.
My biggest gripe is the chinese chicken salad. I find myself getting it because I really like chinese chicken salads. But it’s a headache every time I get it. They use cabbage as their lettuce, which I think most people would agree is not appealing for a salad. And they absolutely load it up with a massive amount of mint leaves. Not tiny mint leaves for flavor. Huge mint leaves. I pick them out, and am usually left with what looks like an entire tree of mint. It’s literally 25 huge leaves of mint. Don’t get me wrong, I like mint. But I don’t want to eat a tree of it.
Anyway, I asked the manager if they could do lettuce instead of cabbage, and get rid of the mint, people would enjoy it a lot more (my friends all had similar experiences with this salad). He told me it was a pre-​packaged mix and there was nothing he would do about it. So as a result he gets a lot less business from me and my friends, whatever I guess.
It’s funny because on their mobile app they put «Unfortunately this salad can NOT be ordered WITHOUT mint or cabbage». Clearly I’m not the only one who doesn’t appreciate their ingredients. So rather than make a salad taste good, they’d rather just put a disclaimer. Smart.
Also they jacked up the price of the salad by $ 2 a few months ago, so I go there a lot less because of that too.

This place has the best soups I have ever tasted! I get take out at least three times a week to enjoy the soups and the fresh, crisp salads and I am always delighted with the quality of the food. The staff is attentive and friendly and the prices are reasonable. Highly recommend!

I had lunch here the other day. I ordered a cobb salad. I waited. And waited. And waited. It didn’t come. The girl at counter was snarky and the manager immediately came over and said that it was brought to another table and the other people ate my food! He offered, and I accepted, my lunch for free– and even gave the food the other had ordered but didn’t eat…
The Cobb was excellent, fresh, great dressing. I just wanted to shout out how fantastic a bad restaurant situation was handled very well– textbook I would say. In light of that, I will go there again and do recommend.

Went here for their Tuna Melt. I just heard that this is one of their best buy and my friends recommends this one too.
If I would rate the Tuna Melt, from 1 – 10. Its on 8, the taste was really good and I really enjoy eating it.
Great staff.

The food wasn’t all that great, the food wasn’t good, the waffle I got tasted weird.
Won’t be going back.

Love it. Order at the counter. Food is fresh and fast. Good menu variety for lunch. Salads are large! Cookies are excellent. Three parking spots in the back.

So the management messaged us immediately to let us know dogs ARE allowed on the patio and it was an un-​informed staff member that asked us to leave. They gave us our next meal free and profusely apologized.
I’m raising my rating from 1 star to 2 stars because of Jarrod’s kindness. I still believe that putting an untrained and curt employee in front of your customers is a bad decision (a staff manager no less). This is basic knowledge at restaurants in SoCal… «courteous dogs are allowed on patios»
We will revisit one day and I’ll write another review (hopefully better) — but until then… I still have a bad feeling of «getting the boot.»

OK. so this updated review is based on their customer service. Last week when we attempted to eat here we were told dogs were not allowed on the patio. so we left. After they saw my review I was contacted by the catering manager in which he apologized that their staff manager was not aware that new Los Angeles code did allow dogs on the patio. He offered to send me a $ 25 gift card to return with our pooch, and today I received it. Thank you Jarrod for reaching out to try to make things right. We look forward to trying those garlic fries!

The food came quick and was delicious. It’s a little pricey, but still of high quality. In short, Colony Café has a brand new customer, and I hope it gets more!

Not really sure why this restaurant became the go-​to lunch spot for my coworkers but I basically come for the company, not the food. Plenty of tables, counter ordering, slightly-​over price menu of diner food without the diner vibe.
So «let’s go get Colonized!» we say, and then we drive over to the café, order our food, ad have a group lunch.
The thing is, if my coworkers didn’t like to go here this much, I’m not sure I would freely go. I don’t think a single visit has ever gone smoothly. Almost every time we’ve had to get up to address something. Ranked from mildly inconvenient stuff to holy crap:
1) Sometimes they take a really, really long time to bring out one of the dishes and we get kinda worried.
2) The time there was dirt in the salad. Like the lettuce hadn’t been rinsed and there were dried out mud chunks.
3) Most recently, when all of the bread rolls with the salads we ordered came with mold – I’m talking bread with a full on beard… long, dangly mold spores – and the servers, when alerted, kind of giggled a bit.
I mean, its not all terrible. They have yummy juices. One of the servers gave my coworker a complimentary slice of banana bread.
(I guess what I’m saying is, one day, I hope the natives revolt.)

Great place for clean good food. I come here a lot. They have outdoor seating which is nice but looks out onto busy Pico Ave. It’s a good place to sit and work or just have lunch. I wish they didn’t close at 4pm. It’s a good goto.

4 stars because there was a mistake made made with my order, but the manager remedied. I enjoy the food and recommend it as a good lunch spot on the west side.

Been here a lot for lunch and really like it.
— Breakfast served all day!
— Good Sandwiches and Salads
— Quick Service
My go to items are:
Egg white veggie scramble eggwich
Breakfast Burrito
Tuna wrap
…but I think all is good and they serve fro yo! Free small cup if you check in on Unilocal!
Enjoy.

This is my favorite lunch spot in all of LA. Healthy, flavorful, quick, well priced, great customer service. There is absolutely nothing I dislike about this place! I love this place so much, my fiancé and I took an engagement photo here. It is such a central part of our lives here in LA, we had to capture our favorite date spot!!!
Pesto Chicken Sandwich and Colony Southwest Salad. BEST EVERRRR

Cute place but subpar food. Wish I could’ve spent my hard earned money elsewhere. The dude and I stopped by for breakfast and ordered the Belgian Waffle ($ 7.25) and PBJ Panini ($ 6.50). I thought the waffle would be something special since it’s only served til 11am, but it tasted no different than a frozen eggo waffle. Maybe a little thicker. The PBJ Panini sounds promising, and it even looks promising, but it’s meh. Think of a PBJ sandwich made with a croissant. We thought the PBJ sandwich came with nutella, but the menu is misleading and says «or nutella.» So, if you want the nutella & banana panini, you can’t just read the name on the menu board. Funky.
Free cookie with a Unilocal check in. Looked like a lot of people just come in to order the orange juice to go.

Great job by the managers and staff to make a girl feel taken care of! Per the manager Mark’s suggestion, I had a salad this time (Chinese chicken) and it was delicious. It unexpectedly had lots of mint and cilantro in it which made it so refreshing! Delicious! I’ll be back.