{"id":316826,"date":"2026-03-01T20:57:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-01T20:57:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/316826\/"},"modified":"2026-03-01T20:57:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-01T20:57:08","slug":"the-legendary-la-chinese-restaurant-that-served-elvis-and-gangsters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/316826\/","title":{"rendered":"The Legendary LA Chinese Restaurant That Served Elvis And Gangsters"},"content":{"rendered":"

Los Angeles has never been short on restaurants that celebrities gravitate towards. From Romanoff’s,\u00a0where Humphrey Bogart enjoyed eating brunch<\/a>, to Old Hollywood haunt\u00a0La Scala\u00a0and\u00a0Wolfgang Puck’s Spago<\/a>, there have always been eateries to see and be seen in La La Land. While Elvis Presley is heavily associated with places like Las Vegas, Palm Springs, and Graceland, the legendary performer loved restaurants all across the United States<\/a>. When he spent time in LA and craved Chinese food, The King would head to the Formosa Cafe, a West Hollywood favorite that has been open since 1939.<\/p>\n

Presley was such an honored guest at the Formosa that today, there is a display of Elvis porcelain figurines in the dining room,\u00a0and his favorite booth bears his name and photographs. Supposedly, on one of Presley’s visits, he forgot to tip a waitress, so he returned the next day to gift her a pink Cadillac. Over the years, the likes of Ava Gardner, Frank Sinatra, John Wayne, Lana Turner, Marilyn Monroe, Humphrey Bogart, James Dean, Clark Gable, and the cast of Beverly Hills 90210 were frequent guests at the restaurant, as were some of history’s most unsavory characters. Infamous mafioso\u00a0Mickey Cohen\u00a0ran bookkeeping operations from the backroom in the 1930s and ’40s. Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel did the same, and he left a time capsule of sorts. During renovations, a hidden safe that the gangster used to exchange cash was\u00a0discovered under the\u00a0Formosa’s floor. It had been tucked away unnoticed for 54 years before it was found.<\/p>\n

Read more: All The US Presidents And Their Favorite Drinks<\/a><\/p>\n

The Formosa Cafe’s location made it a celebrity magnet\"The<\/p>\n

The red exterior of The Formosa Cafe – Walter Cicchetti\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n

One element that has helped bring countless famous faces into the Formosa Cafe over the decades\u00a0is the location.\u00a0The Lot at Formosa, a film production studio\u00a0across the street,\u00a0previously operated under several other well-known names, including Pickford-Fairbanks, United Artists, Samuel Goldwyn, and Warner Hollywood Studios. It was easy for industry bigwigs to walk to the Formosa for drinks or meals. A bonus was that photographers weren’t allowed inside, allowing celebrities a bit of peace while they ate and socialized.<\/p>\n

Although Elvis Presley died in 1977, his legacy was celebrated at\u00a0the Formosa by his daughter, Lisa Marie, in 2023, right before her own death. The King’s only child visited the restaurant on what would have been her father’s 88th birthday, during an event that also honored Baz Luhrmann’s biopic, “Elvis.” Her daughter, Riley Keough, and Austin Butler, who portrayed Presley in the film, were also present, and naturally, they sat at Elvis’ booth. On Formosa’s drink menu, alongside a\u00a0cocktail\u00a0called John Wayne’s Hat and a Mae West martini, is the Pink Cadillac, likely a nod to Presley’s eye-catching car \u2014 the same color and model that he allegedly left as a tip for a server at the restaurant.<\/p>\n

For more food and drink goodness, join our newsletter<\/a> and add us as a preferred search source<\/a>. Get taste tests, food & drink news, deals from your favorite chains, recipes, cooking tips, and more!<\/p>\n

Read the original article on Mashed<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Los Angeles has never been short on restaurants that celebrities gravitate towards. From Romanoff’s,\u00a0where Humphrey Bogart enjoyed eating…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":316827,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[1551,146,158106,158107,85,46,130041,158108],"class_list":["post-316826","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-elvis-presley","tag-entertainment","tag-formosa-cafe","tag-humphrey-bogart","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-la-la-land","tag-pink-cadillac"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/316826","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=316826"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/316826\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/316827"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=316826"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=316826"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=316826"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}