LOB Café

Quick lunch spot if you are in the budding. Salad bar can be a healthy meal.

This place is cheap. Like crazy cheap. Like the prices match the 1960’s décor, cheap. I like their made to order breakfast burritos when I need a real breakfast to start my day. As for lunch, the chinese buffet is a tad greasy, but ok in a pinch, and the salad bar is average. They also have a selection of sodas, candy, and snacks if you just need a little pick me up. Bring cash — there’s an atm on site, but it’s not worth the charge when the food is so inexpensive!

I intern in the LOB building, so I’m quite familiar with the café. Honestly, I feel like it’s a hit or miss. I have yet had a problem «Grumpy» (mentioned below) or any other service matters. So take a chance, go out on an adventure, and try this place out! And no, I’m not saying so to advertise for my boss. I don’t think any staff in this building needs to. It’s just food. =)

Not good and cold and expensive for $ 11 at weigh in and plate wasn’t even not even «full» compared to my standards. Dude if only I’m at a pro at this Unilocal thing I can post a picture of the lies that these so called Unilocalers posted to advertise for their bosses!

Oh Man I just left the lob café on the top floor of the leg. building. The old fart behind the counter is the rudest person I have ever met, he ignored me and helped 4 other guests and would not take my order, even when guests said he was next. Anyways your not missing anything the food is 3^rd rate anyways, its just close to my work, there are to many other food venues to go to have to put up with someone like that. you have lost mu business for sure

I’ve gotten around to trying the breakfast sandwiches and the hot pastrami special, and the five stars still stand. The bacon, egg and cheese sunrise sandwich is hot and made to order, and costs something like $ 2.50. The hot pastrami sandwich special that they have sometimes is super delish, packed with meat, comes with fries, and costs $ 4.55 for the whole shebang. Frickin awesome, that’s what that is. It’s still painted baby girl pink, which makes the whole thing more memorable. The dining room, not the sandwich.

A few coworkers and I made the trek to the opposite end of Capital Park, through the metal detectors, up the elevators, and finally up the stairs to find it. Big ups to the previous reviewers for the directions. We would have never found out about this place otherwise… but actually I might have been better if we didn’t.
I worked nearby and was searching Unilocal for a new lunch spot. I noticed this place has really high ratings (all 4 and 5’s), so this HAD to be good right? WRONG
As soon as I noticed the café I was actually kind of digging it… like a throw back to grade school cafeterias. Looking at the buffet counter the food didn’t look that great but it received good reviews! So I kept an open mind and tried a little of everything anyways.
The verdict? The food is pretty disgusting. I’d even rate it below Panda Express. The salad was semi-​decent, although how can you really mess up salad?
In the end, would definitely never go back. Not even just for a salad.

Hidden in the 6^th floor of the Legislative Office Building (head through the metal detector, take the elevator to the 5^th floor, and walk up one more fligh), it’s like Panda, but better! $ 4/​lb for a variety of salad and asian fare. It was a furlough Friday so there wasn’t too much action going on, but I enjoyed the Carrot Ginger dressing on my spinach salad and the Korean Chicken was yummy. To finish it off, the mixed fruit in orange juice was a good dessert.

When I was in college my buddies and I came up with a business plan for a buffet. We would weigh people when they came in and weigh people when they left and charge people based on the difference. Needless to say our business plan had many holes and we were never able to get it off the ground.
The concept here is similar, except that you weigh the food instead of the customers… DUHHHHHHH… why didn’t we think of that?
For a cafeteria the food here is surprisingly decent. I think the cook is korean, what gave it away was not just the fat korean ahjumma accent, but the slightly koreanized versions of the food they had, including spicy pork and fish jun. $ 3.99 per pound is not bad. At first I gingerly added food to my plate, trying not to go overboard. When I went to the scale it ended up being under a pound. So I went back and went overboard. Came to about $ 6.50 and I was pretty full. Not bad… Read the other reviews for how to find this place, I’m too full and too lazy to explain it right now.
P. S. They had denver omelets for $ 2.99. I think I’ll need to come back and try it.

How many restaurants are worth going through a metal detector? Well, there are a few. The «House of Seven Tables» in the Post Office/​federal building on I Street is one, but until today I was unaware of the LOB Café, located on the sixth floor of the Legislative Office Building.
It’s a bit hard to find. There is a big sign stuck on the back of the Legislative Office Building, but in order to get there you have to enter via the main building entrance on N Street, where a security guard awaits you with a metal detector. Don’t let this dissuade you, just leave your switchblade in your desk and your .38 Chief’s Special in the bedstand.
Once you have passed the first guardian, take the elevator up to the 5^th floor. From there, you will still have to take the stairs to the 6^th floor, and there your treasure awaits.
I should take the time to mention that the Legislative Office Building is a rather nice Streamline Moderne office building. It’s not a super-​dramatic Los Angeles style over-​the-​top Art Deco masterpiece by any means, thanks to its genesis as a staid, conservative state building, but it has a gently used sort of majesty and bulk that I enjoy. A lot of the building has fairly generic drop ceilings and institutional fittings, but enough of the interior has a lot of Art Deco zazz, like glass brick and fluted aluminum panels and rounded corners and prodigious use of marble, even in the bathroom stalls.
The LOB Café isn’t in a room with any of those features. It basically looks like a junior high school cafeteria, like most state/​city/​county lunchrooms: it’s rectangular, with institutional brushed-​metal appliances, and mighty grubbin’ food.
I describe LOB Café as «Asian Fusion» in that it is a well-​orchestrated blend of Asian food and American diner fare. Its main attraction is a $ 3.99/pound buffet & salad bar, featuring mostly Asian offerings. I was intrigued by the popcorn chicken in mashed potatoes, and curious about its origins, but my favorite bit from the buffet was «fish jun,» fried fish in an egg batter that tasted like little omelets with fish filling. These were light, tender and tasty. The vegetables and fruit in the salad bar were crisp and fresh, and everything piping hot. I got a fairly hearty plate of food and paid a mere $ 5.25 to fill up. The sign above the buffet insists there is no MSG, and my current lack of hot flashes and mild hallucinations would seem to confirm that there was none.
They also serve a variety of traditional American diner fare at surprisingly low prices: pancakes, omelets, breakfast sandwiches, burgers, BLT’s and fries, all for far south of $ 5. I will be back to try those.
The place was fairly sparsely attended, even though it was the height of the lunch hour: perhaps the blockades one must run to gain entrance dissuade all but the most determined. Service was institutionally friendly, tables were clean and neat, and the surroundings pleasant. While the room isn’t too much to look at, the windows give a nice view of the office building’s light-​well, and from a second dining area a few steps higher than the restaurant, you get a lovely skyline view of downtown.
One of Sacramento’s culinary secrets is that there are dozens, if not hundreds, of eateries that are only experienced by the tens of thousands of downtown office workers, or those called in to jury duty, because so many of them close after the lunch rush at 2:00 — 5:00 PM. This adds a little dimension of adventure to working downtown, just by going a couple blocks farther out of one’s way and seeking new discoveries. Hopefully more people will discover the LOB Café, and be willing to brave the metal detector for a darn fine lunch.