Monte Carlo Cafe

Saturday morning breakfast at the Monte Carlo Café keeps life as a three decade «Downtowner» real. $ 5.33 for steak (such as it is) and eggs with coffee and refill.

My mom used to bring me to this place for breakfast as a kid, because we were always on a tight budget and this is one of the very rare places with cheap AND good breakfast. It is not glamorous or anything but the place has a long history and is just trying to help out the homeless community.

Most of the reviews about this place are horrible – one of the reviews is about the wrong restaurant! I am okay with this, however, because most of the people who use Unilocal should never come here.
One time some hipster, (from a nearby loft probably), came in to have breakfast. A homeless man who was sitting down talking to another customer asked the hipster for some change right at the exact time that he was asking the waitress for his bill. The hipster told the homeless guy that he didn’t have any money as he paid for his meal with a large bill. Upon seeing that the homeless guy said, «You got money, you’re rich!» This made everybody in the diner laugh out loud. But the hipster didn’t seem to like everybody else’s sense of humor and he just walked out never to come back again.
This is my favorite diner, and one of my favorite places to have a simple breakfast. If you’re a regular, they don’t usually charge you for coffee. Although their menu is pretty small, their food is made to order and is very cheap. My favorite thing – which I almost always order – is a bacon and egg sandwich. The wheat bread is toasted perfectly; the bacon is hot and crispy and goes well with the cold lettuce, big pieces of freshly cut tomato, and fried egg; and there is a lovely crunch each time you bite into it.
But this restaurant is not for everybody. It is built only for those who can truly appreciate it. Any place can make a good breakfast sandwich – I come to this place because it has character. Not a cool atmosphere, but character! Homeless people, recently homeless people that live in the nearby SRO’s, frequent Santee Alley shoppers, and the people that work in the immediate area make up the customer base at this place. If you are not one of these people, you probably won’t like this place, but that’s OK because we don’t really need you here.

The food here is not bad if you like breakfast food all day long (I do!). I found out that this place was where Michael Jackson filmed BEAT IT in 1983 and, as any Michael Jackson fan knows, he did not EAT at this restaurant, but he made history here. So while we are posing, taking pictures and reminiscing about following Michael around LA, we ate at the restaurant. Amazingly, the place looks similar to what we see in the video some 27 years ago, except for the updated windows and doors. Michael filmed in several locations around this restaurant to film this video, in a motel, the former Hard Rock Café two blocks away at 300 E. 5^th, a warehouse near 5^th and Alameda and in an alley nearby. Worth a visit to the Monte Carlo to check it out!

«This café is a hoot. I understand it used to be crappy and pricey, but they are under new management and it is now a solid working class establishment with cheap, solid working class food. It seems to be a mom and pop café now with a pleasant asian lady working the single «U» shaped counter that comprises the whole of the restaurant. I don’t think a single thing on the menu costs over five bucks. You can get bacon, eggs, toast and coffee for five bucks. They don’t give you as much food as the Pantry, but does anyone really need that much? If you want basic Pantry-​style food at much lower prices (albeit with commensurately lower quality) and no century-​long goddamn wait, this is the place for you.
Its also open an hour earlier than the nearby trendy Nickel Diner, which is delightful but keeps hours your banker would envy.
Be warned; the pleasant asian lady begrudges coffee and tea refills. She’ll do it, but she’ll fill your glass/​cup less and less with each request. Its pretty funny.

service is great. but price is ridiculously expensive for a teacup sized coffee.
IT’S CLOSED NOW. ⁵⁄₂₀₀₈

This place is disgusting and the prices are ridiculous. My friends and I decided to come here because it was less crowded but we ended up regretting it. First of all, it’s sorta dirty. Everyone is smoking indoors (well it is Ktown) but the worst part is the actual food.
We got the pat bingsoo and as a bingsoo expert, this was one of the worst I had. Why? Because the beans were crunchy and hard. Disgusting. Seriously disgusting. Come here if you want to pay $ 6 for a small bowl of crunchy beans.