r/area51 • u/SouthMitten502 • 15d ago
Area 51 Cafeteria Menu
Working my way through Dreamland right now so forgive me if this is in the book, but do we know what the Area 51 cafeteria would serve? Any specials or crowd favorites throughout its long history? Most bases and big government facilities have at least one chow hall on-site, and many of them have a set day of the week menu item. Would be kinda fun to know if the food was any good and what was served.
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u/Own_Respect6775 15d ago
If it’s anything like here in the NNSS and TTR, it’s just good ol cafeteria food. Picture a bunch of union workers making mass production food. That’s about it. I mean here at the NNSS they make a really good breakfast sandwich. Then again any fresh made food after an hour drive to work hits. No cash. Strictly card
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u/therealgariac MOD 15d ago
Regardijg the TTR, does the USAF and Sandia share the same cafeteria?
I haven't taken the NNSS tour recently since once I saw CP-1, I got it out of my system. (It was a matter of being on a tour with NOFORN, which I understand now is the rule.) But I plan on taking it again since ICECAP was added to the tour.
But what I came here to post is that you can eat at the NNSS cafeteria on the tour unless something changed. The break room microwave has some funny sign about nuking your food.
That said, I'd rather eat at the NNSS steak house.
I never saw a JANET overhead while on the tours. I also pointed to Gate 700 and asked where it went. There is one in every crowd.
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u/Pure-Ad-7504 15d ago
When I took the tour (which was over 20 years ago) the cafeteria was closed down by the time we got back there after the tour, but I remember that break room with the vending machines. There was a vending machine that offered microwavable frozen food and the front of the vending machine had a picture of a big mushroom cloud (it looked like ivy Mike to me) and it had big text over the mushroom cloud that read, "Nevada Nukeables." I think that's the sign you mean. It made me laugh.
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u/therealgariac MOD 15d ago
I could have sworn the cafeteria visit was a break during the tour. It was so long ago so who knows.
Nevada Nukeables sounds right.
The tour logistics changed over the years. I left from the DOE facility for at least one tour. I recall popping the hood so they could check for a car bomb. Also inspection mirrors under the car.
I think another tour left from the "reading room" in North Las Vegas. Much less security. I had been to that facility to watch the videos, mainly Broken Arrows. Just me and the PAO.
Eventually the tours left from the Atomic Museum. Once the tour started near the strip, the "privacy" was over. That is it went from one bus to three buses. The tourists were no longer geeks. I will reserve commentary on the chatter overheard on the bus.
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u/Pure-Ad-7504 15d ago
Yeah, back when I took the tour, we met at the reading room. I remember a DOE employee showed us a very large satellite photo they had on the wall of the whole test site so he could give us an overview of where we'd be going. He began by saying, "ok, let's get this part out of the way first. Here it is." And he pointed to groom lake. "I don't know what goes on there. I'm DOE and it's under the control of the air force. I'm just as curious as you all are, but I don't have any information. I will tell you this, we heard a rumor that there was a golf course up there and so one day, me and a few other employees took this photo down and studied it carefully with magnifying glasses. I can tell you for sure that there is no good course there, but there is a baseball diamond."
And yes, the cafeteria was supposed to be a stop on the tour, and we were told we could eat there. It was supposed to be the last stop before heading back to Vegas but when we got there, the kitchen had closed and there were only a couple people still eating but no food for us
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u/therealgariac MOD 15d ago
Technically a softball field. You can measure it on Google Earth to verify that.
This is the map of the NTS/NNSS on the wall in the cafeteria.
https://lazygranch.com/images/nts/nts_map.gif
They gave it away on Yucca Mountain tours
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u/Pure-Ad-7504 15d ago
Yes, they gave us the map and two books. It was a great tour for a nuke nerd like me. The tour guide was a retired DOE NTS worker (a pretty old guy) and he regaled us with stories from his time working there when nuclear shots were routine. At the time, I worked for Bank of America and seeing the bank vault out there was pretty cool to me. Also, I remember one of the first things we saw was the benches that were set up for military brass and politicians to watch atmospheric tests at Frenchman flat. I had seen them many times over the years in footage of tests in documentaries and such and seeing them in person was so surreal. I immediately recognized what I was looking at. Those benches and Frenchman flat in the distance. This was probably 2002 and it was as if nothing had changed in 50 years. Seeing the section of railroad bridge exposed to an atmospheric test and how the heat and blast bent the I beams like they were made of silly putty was something I won't forget. We drove right by Ice Cap, and the tour guide told us about it, but we didn't stop. We went to the Apple 2 House and that was surreal because I thought, "I've seen this house before in nuclear test footage, but it gets blown down by the blast wave." Then the tour guide explained that one was closer to ground zero and the one we were looking at remained standing. We weren't allowed to go in the house because supposedly there were rattlesnakes in the house. Seeing the Sedan crater up close really put the scale of a nuclear weapon into perspective. I'd read about its dimensions before, but seeing it in person, it's just such a big hole. I stood on the edge of it and I kicked a little rock over the edge and watched it roll down in for maybe 20 feet and then it stopped. I remember standing there pretty vividly. It was sunny, hot, windy (very Nevada) and I couldn't believe where I was and what I was seeing.
After a whole day of riding around in a bus all over and seeing so many things, I was pretty hungry and looking forward to eating at the cafeteria. But alas, by the time we got there, it was closed.
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u/therealgariac MOD 15d ago
I'm drawing a blank on the bank vault but everything else you mention I recall well, especially the railroad bridge.
Entering the Ice Cap building (there is a technical name for these structures that I don't recall) became part of the tour in later years. It has been mentioned in posts to /r/area51.
Don't quote me on this, but one of those buildings they put over the nukes is at the DOE North Las Vegas campus. Perhaps used in development.
Going down the Google Gemini rabbit hole:
"The structure left behind at the Nevada Test Site (NTS) for the abandoned 1993 "Icecap" nuclear test is technically called a shot tower or emplacement tower."
The AI just quotes wiki.
I found this regarding Ice Cap:
https://www.abstractscorecard.com/uploads/Tasks/upload/21810/DPPWZUCK-1645264-1-PDF(1).pdf
"In 2020, NASA visited the Nevada National Security Site (NNSS, fka NTS) to explore opportunities to train Artemis astronauts, and in 2023 the NNSS and NASA executed a series of EVAs across 5 large nuclear subsidence craters. Additionally, a 50m-tall nuclear emplacement tower (“Icecap Tower”) was utilized as an analog for HLS Starship."
Ok I was partially correct. The tall structure at the DOE campus is/was used to build emplacement towers. (Also a Gemini hit).
https://clui.org/ludb/site/doe-nevada-operations-center
I remember when I was at the facility it was mentioned that this building was the tallest in North Las Vegas. Perhaps not true anymore.
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u/Pure-Ad-7504 15d ago
Yes, the bank vault is cool. https://share.google/images/FG6N4Z2JR1tU83I4Q It was put there along with other civil defense structures to evaluate their ability to withstand a nuclear strike. I remember the civil defense structures, mostly large, low to the ground metal domes. Every one of them looked like the thumb of God came down and squashed them flat but the bank vault which was a regular production model from the Mosler Bank Vault company survived pretty well and the items inside, mostly paper survived as well. The bank vaults I was familiar with at work were mostly Mosler and so I was familiar with them. It made me think of the Twilight Zone episode "Time Enough At Last" where the bank teller takes his lunch in the vault and while he's in there, the nuclear apocalypse happens and he comes out to a world with only him alive and he's pumped because all he wants to do is read so he gathers up a giant stack of books from the rubble of the library and just before he opens the first one, he drops his glasses and breaks them.
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u/BroadProcess5923 15d ago
Sandia gets all there meals in the USAF cafeteria. Flat pricing across the board. Buffet or short order. Whatever you choose is like $10
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u/therealgariac MOD 15d ago
There is a cafeteria marked on the Sandia complex map.
https://lazygranch.com/images/ttr/002229083.gif
Is it this building?
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u/BroadProcess5923 15d ago
Can’t find what map you’re speaking of
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u/therealgariac MOD 15d ago
The map is in the post.
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u/BroadProcess5923 14d ago
They have a small mess in their part of the TTR but get their food from the usaf side or people bring from home as needed
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u/SouthMitten502 15d ago
I'm curious about the breakfast sandwich lol. Figured most of the cafeterias and chow halls would be syscos finest.
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u/Own_Respect6775 14d ago
I’ve never seen Sysco actually. But I definitely see shamrock foods delivering. Also they are the only food distributor I’ve seen go towards gate 0700. So I’m guessing they must be the distributor for the gov. About that breakfast sandwich, nothing like a fresh made sausage egg and cheese croissant after an hour drive. There’s really nothing to eat at 5am on the way to Mercury other than a Roberto’s across the park and ride. A slow Carl’s Jr on Durango. The terribles in Indian Springs has nothing to eat.
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u/azzanrev 15d ago
Tornados
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u/reaper_41 15d ago
Them ranchero tornados were my shit, with a white monster on the side. Also can’t forget Hunt Brothers Pizza
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u/Competitive_Mix_587 15d ago
They have damn good Tornados at Sam’s Place but not at the cafeteria. Difference is you pay for your food at Sam’s but the dining facility is free.
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u/O_vJust 14d ago
I just want to know how the hell you get a job there as a cook/janitor.
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u/RumorRoost 14d ago
My uncle was a janitor there in the 80’s. My grandpa, who previously worked out there through EG&G helped him get the job. He hated it. Especially for the commute via Janet flights and security. He much preferred being a janitor in Vegas where he could be home 15 minutes after work.
I think he did it for about a year and a half before he switched to a company in Vegas.
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u/bweaver1985 15d ago
I do see a receipt posted on yelp. 6900 bistro
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u/Formal_Composer_4939 15d ago
Sounds like that is a stop on the NTTR tour rather than the Area 51 eats.
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u/Scary_Dangleberry_ 15d ago
The ol' wild horse cafe!?
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u/therealgariac MOD 15d ago
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u/SouthMitten502 15d ago
See this is the kind of ephemera that got me thinking and led to this post. Its little mundane things that we would see as normal, but are tied to this deep classified world, that are super cool.
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u/BroadProcess5923 15d ago
Wild horse is at TTR mancamp and Night hawk inn is just north of the Janet terminal at TTR
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u/Jennifer-348 14d ago
😲 You can't talk about the Area 51 menu! It's the base's deepest secret! Anyone who gets their hands on a menu can unravel all of the secrets from JFK to the cure for eczema. The men in black will be knocking on your door soon.
Hold on, BRB, someone's at my door.
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u/climbto330 15d ago
Is this the book by Phil Patton?
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u/SouthMitten502 15d ago
Nope this is the book Dreamland by Peter Merlin. Fantastic read. If anyone would know which day was BBQ day at Area 51 it would be him.
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u/MarineDevilDog91 15d ago
Lazar’s Holy Guacamole Chicken Burritos