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Update: Carla Cafe now has a brick-and-mortar on 8432 W 3rd St, Los Angeles, CA, but you can continue ordering their sandwiches from their ghost kitchen on Santa Monica Blvd. (West LA).
Carla Cafe is a pandemic born business that I’ve come across many times on my Instagram feed. Whether it’s because someone tagged them or someone I know follows them, Carla Cafe is a secret sandwich shop that has blown up thanks to the power of social media.
To this day, the Instagram page continues to be private, which adds more mystery to it. Is Carla the owner? What do they sell? Those are a few questions that ran through my mind when I first found out about it.
Prior to the pandemic, founder of Carla Cafe, Avi Adhoot, worked in a tech start-up for five years without any revenue or success. When the pandemic hit, he wanted to make some extra money. Avi shared in the The Make Down podcast: “The first thing that came to my head were the sandwiches that I made. Maybe I’ll try to sell 20-25 to some friends”. He had no kitchen experience. Carla Cafe’s famous garlic aioli chicken sandwich is the same sandwich he was making for his girlfriend Jessica for the past two years. Every time she posted them, it drove an insane amount of traffic.
It looks like everyone who has tried any of Avi’s sandwiches becomes a convert.
Avi mentioned in the podcast that assembling that many sandwiches is not as easy as it looks, especially from a home kitchen. It was estimated that Avi sold an average of 1,000 sandwiches per week.
At first, Carla started taking orders through Instagram only. At the time, he released different types of sandwiches that rotated three days a week: garlic aioli chicken, tuna chop and chicken pesto. Although Avi doesn’t have a favorite one, the garlic aioli is the dearest to him because it was the one that started everything.
Three years later, the menu has expanded with a few more sandwiches and a breakfast burrito. But the garlic aioli and the tuna chop remain the best-selling sandwiches. The third most popular item is the tuna chop salad.
✨: waited 3 years to try this internet-famous, pandemic-born sandwich and it was totally worth it. the perfect tuna is complemented by what feels like a full salad, but unlike other salady sandwiches, this held together until the end with no mess.
@carlacafela
Insider.com did a review on Carla Cafe’s famous chicken sandwich:
“I’ve lived in the greater LA area for most of my life, and sandwiches are often my go-to lunch choice — so I’ve tried a lot of sandwiches. When I took my first bite, I knew it was the best sandwich I’d had in LA.”
Jamie, co-host of The MakeDown podcast shared this about Avi’s tuna chop sandwich: “I had the Tuna Chop two weeks ago. I’m Jewish and I had a lot of tuna salads growing up. This was the best tuna salad I’ve had in my life, and the bread was the best I’ve had in my life. I loved the texture. It was really crispy on the outside.”
Avi explained that he uses ciabatta bread, which is toasted for each sandwich.
What makes the sandwiches so special? Jamie wondered.
Avi: “I’m very picky. Most of the times when I went to places I was like “This could be better. The secret is care and attention that maybe other restaurants with full menus can’t afford to do. It’s difficult for a restaurant to perfect everything on their menu to the extent of focusing on one sandwich at a time and nail it.”
Carla Cafe now operates seven days a week and is available on Postmates and Uber Eats. But if you don’t want to pay the high fees of food delivery apps, you can also order for pick-up at their facility — a nondescript warehouse on Santa Monica Blvd, in the Sawtelle area. Their IG will notify you of their available pickup time slots on the website.
It was a lazy Sunday morning. I was out of groceries and opened the Postmates app, something I don’t do very often given the high prices of the tax and delivery. Intrigued by Carla Cafe, I ordered the garlic aioli chicken sandwich that launched Carla Cafe to a viral sensation.
I follow Alexandra Cooper, the host of the world famous podcast, Call Her Daddy, on Instagram. She posted a picture of the famous garlic aioli chicken sandwich a day after I had it. As you can see, it seems like everyone who tries any of Carla Cafe’s sandwiches is under a spell!
Note: I did not take any pictures of the sandwich nor did I do any prior research because I didn’t think I’d like it enough to write about it.
So, was it that good? For the record, I’m not a huge sandwich person. I may enjoy them once in a while, but I’m not a die-hard fan. The first thing that struck me about the sandwich was the garlic aioli spread. I was blown away by how good it was.
The rest of the ingredients were fresh. Granted, I could have easily assembled a sandwich like that myself: chicken breast, avocado, arugula and tomato — It’s very no-fuss with accessible ingredients that you can get at any grocery store. The star of the show however, was the sauce.
Besides the mind-blowing garlic aioli spread, Avi also adds a drizzle of olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and shaved parmesan cheese. That’s where the magic of the sandwich lies. It’s very simple, but it elevates the sandwich to a different level. Indeed, I could understand the hype within my first two bites.
The only con is that for the price, $19, I wish the size of the sandwich was bigger. Not as big as a sub sandwich, but somewhere in between. However, this would make the sandwich more expensive because Avi would have to use more ingredients and more of his magic garlic aioli spread. From the pictures I’ve seen so far, it looks like the tuna chop sandwich is much bigger and more substantial than the garlic aioli sandwich. The bread was ok. It was toasted but too hard for my liking. I would have preferred it to be fluffier and softer. But that’s just personal preference.
I was really hungry, and looking back, I would have ordered the bag of chips that was suggested at the checkout, but that way my total order would have been $40 on Postmates. I will definitely order again, but this time, I’ll do it from the website and pick up the order myself.
Besides their mouth-watering sandwiches, Avi and his girlfriend Jessica have capitalized on Carla Cafe’s success by creating a merch line and a podcast that features the background stories of Carla Cafe’s customers, where they talk about their journey that landed them into their current careers. It’s been three years since Carla Cafe dropped the first sandwich, but it seems like they still want a small community feel. There’s a reason why their Instagram is still private.
Have you tried Carla Cafe? Do you think it’s worth the hype?
