Atomic Cafe, Japanese diner in Little Tokyo, Los Angeles, US

Atomic Cafe was a diner at 422 East First Street in the Little Tokyo district of Los Angeles. It was owned and operated by the Matoba family, who founded it as Ito and Minoru Matoba's cafe in 1946. From 1977 the interior walls and ceiling were covered with punk rock posters and fliers put up by the proprietors' daughter, "Atomic Nancy" Matoba.

The diner was founded in 1946 by Ito and Minoru Matoba, shortly after World War II, as the Japanese American community in Little Tokyo was rebuilding. It stayed open for several decades before closing in 1989.

The proprietor's daughter, "Atomic Nancy" Matoba, covered most of the interior walls and ceiling with posters and fliers for punk rock bands, which drew Los Angeles punk adherents to the diner from 1977 onward. Music promoter Paul Greenstein frequented the cafe and promoted it among the punk counterculture scene. The jukebox mixed punk singles, new wave, classic rock and roll, standards, and songs in Japanese.

The original building was torn down in 2015 to make way for a station on the Regional Connector Transit line, so there is nothing left to see on site. Historical photographs and records held in local archives can give a sense of what the place once looked like.

The diner had one of the few jukeboxes in Los Angeles that mixed Japanese songs with punk singles and classic rock tracks. This combination reflected the two very different communities that shared the same small space over the years.