™Erewhon Is Staying at LACMA for Good, With a Sculpture-Inspired Smoothie
The pineapple-mango-strawberry blend mimics the Calder fountain beside the cafe, and you don't need a museum ticket to order one.
Erewhon's LACMA cafe is now permanent, and the grocery chain is celebrating with a smoothie built to look like the fountain outside its door.
The upscale L.A. market announced on Monday, October 5, that its counter at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art is the museum's permanent cafe, the Los Angeles Times reported. Nobody needs a museum ticket to order there. The cafe is open to visitors who haven't paid admission, and outdoor public art surrounds it.
The new drink takes its look from "Three Quintains (Hello Girls)," the Alexander Calder fountain sculpture next to the cafe on the ground floor. It's a blend of pineapple, mango, strawberry, mandarin and lion's mane, made with organic fruit, Los Angeles magazine reported. Only the museum location sells it.
Erewhon first landed in the Miracle Mile's new David Geffen Galleries as a pop-up in April, roughly a week after the Peter Zumthor building opened. Price was the knock from the start. The chain's smoothies typically run $13 to $22, the Times noted, and critics argued the museum's ground floor deserved something cheaper.
For the company, this counter is a first. "As our first ever concept cafe, this marks an important milestone for Erewhon," Tony Antoci, Erewhon's chief executive, said in a statement Los Angeles magazine published. The museum sounds just as pleased. Michael Govan, LACMA's president and chief executive, called the chain "a true family-owned local icon" in a news release quoted by the Times.
The deal comes with merch: a limited-edition sweatshirt and tote, sold at the LACMA Store inside the Geffen Galleries and on the museum store's website. A share of every sale from that Erewhon at LACMA collection goes to the museum's education and exhibition programs, Los Angeles magazine reported.
The smoothie counter won't be the building's only place to eat forever. The Geffen Galleries' full restaurant still hasn't been announced. It's already hosting private events, though, the Times reported, among them the unveiling of a poster Ed Ruscha designed for Alejandro González Iñárritu's new film, "Digger."
Source: Los Angeles Times, retrieved October 6, 2026. Other sources: lamag.com.
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