Monarca Coffee Shop & Restaurant — Restaurant in Quepos

For starters this “magical” place is a cage filled with butterflies who are bred here, which made me rather uncomfortable. They interact with guests when guests order sweets or fruit, which is normal, as they feed on nectar in nature. But ask yourself if you’d like to live your life in a cage. As far as the food is concerned, the egg toast was OK, the mushroom toast was just sad — with seven tiny slices of a cremini mushroom spread on a piece of bread. Like, what? And to make things worse, I was charged C1,500 ($3) for a cup of hot water with lemon which on my bill was called “an infusion” 😂 I mean, that’s pathetic! Spend your money elsewhere!

EDIT — After receiving a truly shameless response to my review from the cafe owners, I’d like to address the key points in the owner’s response:

I WAS NOT advised that I’d be charged for the hot water with lemon when I ordered it, and when I expressed surprise and concern after receiving the bill, the cafe staff called the water with lemon “an infusion” when it should be called “robbery in broad daylight.” This is a butterfly zoo, not a sanctuary, so when you talk about conservation and protection, you are misleading the customers. When you talk about the safety of the butterflies, does that include that anyone at the cafe may grab them or touch them? Is that what happens to them in the wild? Because a guy next to me was holding one in his fingers and I didn’t see the wait staff rushing to tell him to release it. Breeding butterflies to use in your business is HIGHLY UNETHICAL, no matter what your counter argument is. These creatures never get to experience the actual tropical forest which is all around them, and which they can hear and sense, while they are locked in a cage. There’s also a lot of them per square foot, which is why, I’m sure, they are so eager to land on customer’s fruit. There are not enough flowers and nectar in this cage for them to subside on naturally. The WAIT STAFF were DEMOTIVATED and looked UNHAPPY to be there, and once again were not helpful. If you charge $3 for hot water, your business model is bound to fail, as that smells of GREED and DISRESPECT towards your customers. On a large scale, it’s not about the money, it’s about the LACK OF TRANSPARENCY and TAKING ADVANTAGE of...

This coffee shop/cafe was a gem of a find! We discovered it while at the Butterfly Garden within Sukia Adventure Park. It's beautiful! We went twice today! Inside is pleasantly air-conditioned with seating against a full wall of windows. We watched an active sloth, the closest we had seen our entire Costa Rican vacation. Went back in the evening to enjoy a glass of wine, a delicious passion fruit daiquiri!, cheesy bread stick, Nutella croissant, and passion fruit cheesecake. It was all so delicious, our kids got a 2nd bread stick and croissant. This time we sat at the bar outside and watched the owl butterflies become very active as dusk approached (5p). The breakfast menu looks wonderful. Highly recommend! The staff were...

We visited this coffee shop on 28.01.2023 based on the good reviews. But our experience told us another story. We wanted to sit inside the air con coffee shop but were being told by the waitress the two tables were reserved. Do people make reservations just for a coffee in Costa Rica we wondered? So we sat outside the coffee shop in front of lots of butterflies flying around us which was hot but lovely. All along we were being served by a grumpy face and not friendly waitress. The coffee is milky and yet not cheap. We simply felt not being welcomed there. It’s a shame the place has been let down by its service and the coffee, otherwise it would have been a lovely...