Industry Cafe & Jazz

For LA Ethiopian food on the west side, this is a solid option. But if you want more options and authenticity, go to Fairfax (Little Ethiopia).

The restaurant is tiny and the menu is limited and seems confused. There are burgers and fries, but then catfish and Awaze Tibbs.

Beware of nights when they have a live band. It's so loud you can't have a conversation.

Ethiopian beer and wine only.

Price - 4
Food - 3.5
Ambience - 3

I would give them 5 stars but their salmon sometimes lack season & that makes the it taste perfectly cooked, but bland. Sometimes

These Yelp reviews steered me wrong. This restaurant get's a big fat FAIL!

My sister and I went here a week ago for lunch. And since they offer Ethiopian food and soul food, we each decided to get a different cuisine.

I got the soul food: catfish, "baked" macaroni, candied yams, and a salad. There were issues with each of the items except the salad.
1. The catfish looked delicious (the result of a good job of pan frying), but was absolutely flavorless.
2. The "baked" macaroni tasted like boxed macaroni that was cooked days before and reheated.
3. The candied yams were.... a disgusting catastrophe. The first problem was that the skin was still on. Are the cooks unaware that the skin should be removed??!!!. It tasted like nothing. No, that's incorrect. It tasted like boiled sweet potato. (see pic)

Unfortunately, the Ethiopian food wasn't without issues:
1. My sister got the tibsi with beef. And it tasted like spaghetti sauce! There was an employee sitting across the room from us that was eating spaghetti, and it's our belief that they used that spaghetti sauce for my sister's dish. Of all the offenses with our meals, this one was the worst. (see pic)
2. Some of the lettuce in my sister's salad had already gone bad and was spoiled.

When the older woman waitress (cook too?) that was servicing us came to take our plates and bring the bill, I asked her about the beef tibsi, and why it tasted like spaghetti sauce, and the lack of the traditional awaze or berbere flavoring. She said it tasted like spaghetti sauce because we got mild spiciness rather than very spiciness. If I'd never eaten Ethiopian food, I may have believed such rubbish, however having had Ethiopian food over a hundred times and living in an apartment referred to as Little Ethiopia, I know she was telling a lie.

This restaurant serves two distinct cuisines that they fail at. If they excelled at one over the other, at least I can conclude that one of the two cuisines is their specialty. But I cannot do that. The food is awful. Unless you're eating for JUST nourishment and not for enjoyment and pleasure, I suggest you dine somewhere else.