Re/Creation Review: LA’s Great Indoor-Outdoor Cafe (With House Rules)

All PostsLos Angeles EatsLiving in Los Angeles
Written By Amy Suto
A matcha on the indoor-outdoor patio at Re/Creation cafe in Mid-City Los Angeles

Re/Creation’s indoor-outdoor room, doing its golden-hour thing at 10am.

Re/Creation on Washington is what happens when a café decides the wall between indoors and outdoors is a suggestion — and I loved it. We hosted one of our Make Writing Your Job subscriber meetups here, and the room did half the hosting for us.

Re/Creation is a great Mid-City café for a few golden hours — genuinely good drinks, that seamless indoor-outdoor flow, and a social-first energy that makes it perfect for meetups, catch-ups, and short work sprints.

A heart-stamped mug at the Make Writing Your Job subscriber meetup at Re/Creation in Los Angeles

Meetup fuel. The mug understood the assignment.

The House Rules (Read Before You Camp)

Honest fine print: this is not an all-day co-working spot, on purpose. They limit how long you’re meant to laptop-camp, and weekends go laptop-free entirely — because weekends are for events. Salsa classes. Paint-and-sip nights. The kind of programming that makes you forgive the rule, and honestly, a café that would rather host a dance class than a sea of screens has its priorities in order.

If you’re in the Mid-City area and you want a few great hours rather than a full workday, Re/Creation is exactly right. For the marathon sessions, LA has Republic of Pie.

The Verdict on Re/Creation

  • Best for: Meetups, weekend events, a few-hour work sprint in indoor-outdoor light
  • Know before you go: Co-working hours are politely capped; weekends = no laptops, yes salsa
  • Where: Washington Blvd, Mid-City (Google Maps)

Re/Creation joins my best of LA list and the café circuit in my Los Angeles travel guide.

For the full picture of eating (and working, and tea-tasting) in LA, start with my Los Angeles travel guide and my best restaurants & coffee shops in LA list. Subscribe to my newsletter for new reviews — and if the “host a meetup in a great café” life appeals to you, that’s the Make Writing Your Job community at work.