What Egg Shortage? At the Gudetama Cafe, It’s Business As Usual.

The world’s favorite lazy egg remains unbothered

This egg shortage has been difficult for me as someone who puts a fried egg on every meal and bakes a lot. A meal of eggs, rice, and soy sauce carried me through times when I couldn’t afford much else, but now that I’ve seen prices in Los Angeles skyrocket to $14 for a dozen, they feel less like part of the struggle meal and more like a luxury.

Which made me wonder: How is an egg-themed cafe managing through all this turmoil? The Gudetama Cafe, in Buena Park, California, is modeled after Sanrio’s lazy egg character (Sanrio is also the creator of Hello Kitty and other Japanese mascots that include both animals and food). Portraits of Gudetama adorn the restaurant’s windows and he’s featured on all the merchandise. Naturally, the menu is focused on eggs (which, given the cafe’s mascot, feels a bit cannibalistic). So I assumed that the egg shortages must be affecting the business’s bottom line.

Kat Thompson

I pulled up to the Gudetama Cafe on a sunny Friday morning at 10:50 a.m., 10 minutes before it was scheduled to open. There were stanchions out front, which suggests the lines can be long and unwieldy (the LA Times reported that on opening day last May, people waited upwards of 12 hours and some were turned away). But when I arrived, there was no one. There was also a paper sign taped to the door, which made me panic: did the egg shortage mean that I’d just wasted an hour driving to Orange County? No: “Due to operational issues, we will open at 11:30,” the sign read. “Sorry for the inconvenience :(”

The cafe is part of an outdoor mall, so I wandered around. While I waited, I watched three different groups of people come to the Gudetama Cafe and drift away after reading the sign. At 11:23 I queued up to be the first in line. At 11:25, an employee opened the door.As the first in line, I got to slide open the cafe’s egg-themed “open” sign.

The inside of the cafe is, admittedly, quite magical if you love eggs or cute Japanese mascots. Everything is yellow and Gudetama is everywhere: his face is on every table and on giant slices of bacon and toast suspended from the ceiling, and a human-sized figure of him stands in front of a step-and-repeat.

Kat Thompson

Sandwiches at the Gudetama Cafe range from $13.50 to $18. Each one has some form of egg on it, whether it be chicken eggs or quail eggs. I ordered a katsu egg and cheese sandwich as well as a bacon egg and cheese, both of which cost $16 and come with tater tots. Both also arrive on a brioche bun with a sunny-side up fried egg (which also features Gudetama’s face on the yolk), American cheese, and chile sauce.

I asked the employee taking my order if they had to shut down at all or raise prices due to the egg shortages. The employee seemed confused. “We haven’t had any issues,” she said as she handed me my receipt. This surprised me; just a week prior, at a brunch spot in LA, I was hit with an egg surcharge due to higher egg prices. I tried to follow up with messages to the cafe’s spokespeople, but failed to get a response.

Because the Gudetama Cafe is so kitschy and adorable, I fully expected the food to be average at best. I was not holding out for a gourmet experience here, but what I got was, surprisingly, more than adequate. The brioche bun, stamped with an image of Gudetama, was warm and plush and buttery. The eggs were runny and the yolks bright and creamy. The chicken katsu wasn’t the best I’ve ever had, but it wasn’t dry either, while the BEC was topped generously with three thick slices of bacon. In truth, these were two really great breakfast sandwiches whose prices feel on par with those of other cafes in Los Angeles.

I also purchased the cafe’s collaboration cream puff with Beard Papa’s; it was dipped in white chocolate and topped with a dollop of orange-hued peach jam to resemble an egg. The cream puff had a traditional vanilla bean filling and another sheet of Gudetama’s face on the ‘yolk’ of the puff. You can say what you want about the Gudetama Cafe, but they do not skip any opportunity for branding. The cream puff was fine, but the stars were truly the sandwiches.

Kat Thompson

By the time I finished my meal, around 11:50, the cafe was about half full. There were several families with children running around, taking photos with every Gudetama statue available, as well as groups of friends photographing their meals. It wasn’t crowded, but I imagine the weekends during peak lunch time might be busier.

Overall, the Gudetama Cafe exceeded my expectations in more ways than one. The eggs, both edible and decorative, were abundant. There wasn’t a single hiccup with service and the food, despite the fixation with its aesthetics, genuinely tasted good. Even during an egg shortage, Gudetama delivered. Worries about prices and bird flu were for the outside world. Inside, business was all sunny side up.