Cafe Presto

I used to go here for breakfast when I worked in the area and it’s still my favorite breakfast burrito spot. I get the veggie egg white with bacon and it’s my baseline for satisfaction. Now I get it for client meetings and it makes others happy.

Decent food, ok service.
I get the croissant breakfast sandwich and it’s great, but their credit card machine breaks down a lot. The last few times I’ve been, they’re cash only and they’ve been pretty rude about it.

5 stars for a breakfast burrito that never fails me at 8:30AM. Get extra salsa! The salad bar is also very clutch. No comment on anything else they have to offer.

This review is for the salad bar only. I haven’t tried its sandwiches. Café Presto has a fresh salad bar with plenty of options for $ 7.45 per pound.
I grabbed the container located to the left of the salad bar and placed fresh cut avocados, mushrooms, seafood salad, sunflower seeds and red onions. It’s a great place for a quick lunch.

Great short order cooking. Family owned. Always super friendly and helpful. I have been going here for years and have always been very happy with their service.

This place is just «okay» if okay means everything you get here is slightly worse than something you can make at home. The club sandwich on wheat is okay, their sweet potato fries are just «alright» and the fish and chips were straight up nasty. The people behind the register are very pushy and one time they yelled at me for taking a to go box, it’s a to-​go box what does it cost? A PENNY?! Speaking of pennies be prepared to drop 12 bucks for a sandwich and fries, I know it’s Santa Monica but at this place you do not get what you pay for. Wow– why do I always come here? I don’t even know…

I love a good club sandwich and this place will serve you up on early in the day. If I have to work through lunch or get on a long call, I’ll pick up lunch here and be set. Not a huge fan of their salad bar but it’s a good fallback as well.

If they run out of ingredients, the cooks will just not cook your food instead of asking you what the f*ck you want it replaced with.

I don’t usually write reviews, actually I don’t write them at all on here so for me to write one something has to really inspire me to find it necessary of putting in the effort for a review.
This seems like one of your typical restaurant where the help does all the work and the people who own it sit up front collect cash but know nothing of their own business. With no line there was two ladies who looked related stood up front at the just chit chatting at the cashier stand while this other lady was trying to sweep and clean around them. Finally I decided I wanted on of their paninis. In observance of a religious holiday I am not eating meat so I asked the cashier if the Panini I wanted was vegetarian. She didn’t know the answer and had to ask the cleaning lady. The cleaning lady said there was meat so I asked the cashier if there was a substitute for the meat. Once again the cashier knew nothing and had to ask the lady cleaning. She said there wasn’t and I asked the cashier what are my options as far as a vegetarian friendly panini. Of course once again she had to go ask the lady who is cleaning and was not able to answer any of my questions. So it seems like the only option I had for a panini was ordering the chicken panini and then substituting the chicken with avocado. The lady handed me an order number 69 and I went to the side to wait for my number to be called.
Not too one of the other ladies just hanging out at the front while everyone else is working calls «#67?» I take a glance at my number just to make sure I’m not confused and nope I still had #69. The lady calls «#67» several times then walk back to the cashier that took my order. The cashier that took my order then walks towards the pickup window looks at me and says «did I not give you a number?» I replied to her «yes you did I have #69». With a subtle attitude she says to me «she’s been calling number 69 several times». Because I thought I was the one confused and hearing things I politely said «oh I thought she called #67». Turning her back towards me she replies «yeah that’s right she did call #67 she didn’t call #69 but that’s your order». No apology not even «a my bad smile.» I guess it was my fault they don’t know her numbers.
So I walk back to my office which is across the street finally sitting down at my desk to eat and I open up the box to see two small halves of a sandwich, same size as my childhood PBnJ sandwich and the rest of the box packed with soggy unsalted fries. I pick up the sandwich which had a soaking puddle of grease in the middle take a bite and sure enough… there was chicken. I didn’t have enough lunch time to walk all the way back to talk to someone who incompetently works the front collecting money but lacks more knowledge about the business than the lady sweeping the floor. Crazy thing is with everything that happen I’m a pretty calm and zen-​ful person I wasn’t even upset until I found out there was chicken in my sandwich which was my main concern.
So I just had to give the sandwich to a co-​worker who didn’t even want it cause of how nasty greasy it looked but felt guilty I bought it so took it anyways. All I had was a couple of extra greasy fries. Basically I paid $ 9.80 to take a walk in the hot sun, speak to someone who doesn’t know what they’re doing but is just there for the money, get an attitude filled lesson on numbers and starve for the rest of the day.
The items on the menu, the behavior, the level of professionalism, quality, customer service all point fingers to a classic scenario of business owners who could care less about anything else but making money. A day and age where you sell yourself cheap for a quick buck than concentrate on putting out something of quality and you’d be proud of. Maybe the lady that can answer custumers questions should be the one at the front collecting money and taking orders and the lady that cant seem to get anything right be the one cleaning the floors.
Hungry, working, and EXTREMELY irrated. When I can write a whole essay on how much your service sucks you might want to consider findind a new business to be in.

Honest to God one of the worst sandwiches I’ve ever had.
First of all, don’ t let the name fool you –there’s nothing «PRESTO» about this place. Took 15 minutes for my sandwich.
I ordered the avocado plus (turkey).
There was…
(a) barely any avocado
(b) white bread, when I had ordered sourdough, NOT toasted and weird
© mystery potato salad as the side
(d) mayo, when I didn’t ask for it and it wasn’t mentioned when I ordered
Gross, overpriced, slow. I wish I had my $ 8 back.
I was SO HUNGRY I ate it. And immediately regretted it.

Café Presto is like a college dining hall — you can get chili fries, mapo tofu, and salad from the same place. But to that point, it tastes about as good as dining hall food.

I work across the street from the Yahoo building so walking to Café Presto in the morning is easy. I have really only ordered breakfast from here and I can definitely say it’s SO delicious. Huge fan of the Spanish burrito with egg whites, whole wheat wrap and hold the meat. This costs $ 5.95 and it’s completely worth it. It’s very big and jammed full of eggs, cheese, avocado, onions, tomatoes and jalapeños. With all that goodness, I don’t have room in my stomach for the meat but my coworker often substitutes the ham for bacon and she’s a fan. This burrito more than keeps me totally full for the whole day too which is great! Tasty salsa comes on the side and it’s always ready (I order over the phone) when I get there. Trimana is probably Café Presto’s biggest competition but Café Presto is WAY better than Trimana and you get way more bang for your buck… all my coworkers agree! The only reason I am not giving Presto 5 stars is because sometimes their phone rings and rings and rings when I call to place my order. I just finished my morning burrito as we speak and I am very happy!

I don’t get the negative reviews, I like this place a lot. I disagree with the complaints about service, they are nice people.
Bulgogi Kimchi Plate is great, roast beef sandwich very good, burgers good the only thing I have had that wasn’t too good was the chili.
I recommend Café Presto.

Good breakfast burrito if in the area and craving a hearty breakfast. The rest of the menu? Meh. The salad bar out in the middle of the food court is questionable so I don’t dare try it when Mrs. Winston’s is across the street.

Not great, but not bad. Located in the Yahoo! Center, it sits next to several places to eat which offer a similar and eclectic array of sandwiches, Korean food, salads and more. The menu is kind of overwhelming and confusing. But all the other restaurants next to it seem to be using the same approach.
They seem to have figured out whatever issue is listed below regarding ordering, paying and the numbers. You pay and get a number, and wait for your food like the other establishments.
The cashiers were fine, and the place appeared clean enough. I ordered a burger and was pleasantly surprised by how tasty it actually was. The patty was thin, but the burger itself is quite big on a nice bun. The burger is also hand pressed and decently seasoned. I would definitely order it again, but probably try one of their different burger options.
I’ll update this when I figure out how their Korean food fares to the restaurants next to it… to be continued!

Better than Trimana

I doubt i’ll be returning here.
I tried a simple thing, a turkey sandwich. It was not good, the quality of the turkey wasn’t good. It reminded me too much of my packed lunches from a frugal mom. The bread wasn’t toasted either and the macaroni salad looked weird so I didn’t taste it.
I tried more exotic, a bulgogi gyro. I know, right! It was bad. Not the juxtapositioning of gyro and beef, but it wasn’t that. It was the individual components. The beef was far too rich, like lamb. I hated it.

I only order one thing here… because, well, it’s a Korean-​owned restaurant and I’m not expecting them to beat out the French in making a sandwich.
The bulgogi at Café Presto is the best in the Yahoo Center. Not to say that it can really compete with k-​town or any «good» Korean restaurants, but for an office complex it’s respectable quality and will satisfy.
That one thing I get is the Kim-​Chi Bulgogi combo with egg. Except I get it with steamed vegetables instead of egg. The idea is to kind of simulate restaurant Korean food in the context of being in the middle of corporate Santa Monica for $ 8.
So I’m not going to up-​sell this place as amazing food, but it definitely deserves 3.5 stars relative to your other options in the area. Perhaps they suffer from too wide of a menu selection, but it’s an American audience to satisfy so it makes sense from a business standpoint.
And in terms of service, I’ve never had a problem. I’m reading these reviews about «service with a scowl», and I’ve only received friendliness. That is, as friendly as you can expect from a family-​owned Asian restaurant. You have to have certain expectations coming in :)

Service with a scowl. If Kim Jong-​Il ran a restaurant, it would resemble this place — humorless and dictatorial.
I work in the Yahoo! Center and learned long ago to avoid this place for lunch — the food is sub-​par and the place just feels dirty. However, after working out in the morning at the gym right next door, this place is the only option for something hot to eat. And I will admit that they make an ok breakfast burrito (which is why they get an extra star…).
The thing that kills me the most is the service. The lady behind the counter is horrible. The last time I was there I ordered (and paid for) my breakfast burrito and told her that I would be right back to pick up, after going to Tully’s to grab a coffee. When i returned less than 5 minutes later she accused me of not paying and argued with me – WTF?!
The other thing that kills is their debit card policy… they used to be cash only (a key reason why I avoided them. I hate cash), but now they take debit cards, but with a $ 5 minimum, as I found out today after attempting to purchase my $ 4.50 burrito with a debit card. She offered to upsell me on a banana or something else rather than overlooking that soviet-​era policy. Pretty lame… and just another reason to avoid this place.
When it comes to lunch, you can’t go wrong at the neighboring Star Wraps… but if you want a hot something after your morning workout, you’re kinda stuck having to deal with the Scrooge of café presto.

Often came here for a somewhat decent breakfast special…
Of course, the fact that the health depeartment closed them down for three weeks due to «cockroach infestation» makes me wonder why my eggs were so crunchy.
Ah well, it’s extra protein, right?
They re-​opened last week.