What Happened to At Last Café After Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives?

Part 1 — Season 9, Episode 5 Aired May 24, 2010

Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives featured At Last Cafe in the Porkapalooza episode, S9E5, which aired 2010-05-24, spotlighting the Long Beach bistro's French-influenced American comfort food. At Last Cafe was a neighborhood restaurant in Long Beach's Alamitos Beach district, run by chef-owner John McLaughlin and known for dishes such as brick chicken, lamb ossobuco, and housemade cheesecakes. Longbeachize reported that the restaurant closed its doors in 2016, after McLaughlin served his final plates to the public, and that the space later became home to a different restaurant, Ellie's. A public Yelp listing for the business, updated February 2026, continues to mark it closed.

McLaughlin returned for a single-night popup at Liberation Brewing Co. in November 2021, according to Longbeachize, but the original cafe did not reopen at its former address. Wikipedia's flag of the business as closed served only as a lead confirmed independently through the Longbeachize report.

Part 2 — Season 23, Episode 18 Aired December 11, 2015

Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives featured this Long Beach comfort-food spot for its from-scratch American cooking, highlighting the restaurant's pot roast and brick chicken as signature dishes, according to TVFoodies' listing for the location. At Last Cafe operated as a casual American cafe on Orange Avenue in downtown Long Beach, drawing a following for its homestyle breakfast and lunch fare. According to a Yelp listing updated in February 2026, At Last Cafe is marked permanently closed, with no current hours or menu shown. A separate directory, USMenuGuide, also lists the restaurant as closed, noting the page "appears to have closed down and may be removed soon." Neither listing gives an exact closure date, and no statement from the restaurant's owners describing a closure could be found.