Esmeralda's Pancake House — Restaurant in Monticello

Walking into Esmeralda’s, you get a small town Mexican restaurant feel. Sombreros and acoustic guitars on the wall. Booths whose seats were repaired with duct tape. Needs a little TLC, but it’s okay.

We came to try their breakfast, thinking we would have an IHOP-like experience. I ordered the breakfast with biscuits and gravy, scrambled eggs, sausage and hash browns; my mother ordered the french toast with eggs over easy, sausage and hash browns. Our plates arrived, and while everything looked good, the plates were on the smaller side. Enough to leave you reasonably satisfied, but you most likely won’t need a box for any leftovers.

Whoever was operating the grill in the kitchen had it turned too high, as the hash browns were crispy on the outside, but tough and undercooked on the inside. On the opposite end, our eggs were overcooked, being dried and overly crispy. The biscuits and gravy were okay, but the gravy was actually bacon gravy instead of sausage gravy like I’m accustomed to. The french toast was delicious, but I would wager that’s more to do with how good the cinnamon swirl bread was, as opposed to how it was prepared. My fresh-squeezed orange juice was excellent, tasting like I just bit into a fresh navel orange. Some good, some bad with regards to the food.

Overall, Esmeralda’s has a lot of potential to be a great place, but the food preparation needs some work, as well as the overall presentation within the restaurant. If you do come here, keep your expectations realistic, and you’ll leave here...

Found this gem while camping out in Monon for the weekend. It was pretty much the only thing that was open early enough where my family and I could get a good meal for breakfast. Despite being our only option, we are happy with our visit. It was super crowded but we were seated quickly and our orders were out in no time. The waitress was great. She made sure to check on us every once in a while and kept up with our refills. The menu has A LOT of options. Breakfast had many choices and they even had an authentic Mexican menu. The portions are good and the prices are fair. No need to over order in fear of not having enough food. Lol. My family of 4 (2 adults and 2 children) ordered 4 drinks, 3 regular breakfast entrees, a kids meal, a side of tater tots, a side of ham, and a side of fried jalapenos. This was way too much food for the 4 of us. Lol. I believe we paid around $75. We could have done without the jalapenos and tater tots. These went unfinished. I'm sure this won't be our last visit as we travel to the area...

I went with my boyfriend and my uncle, we’re hispanic and you can tell we’re hispanic. We we’re seated and we waited for a while. We were not given no chips or even asked what to drink. There were waitresses just standing and talking and we were just looked at and ignored. People came in after us and they’re orders were taken except ours. We had waitress looked at us and whisper among themselves. We had to walked out and go to other restaurant. Since noone approached us to take our order.

Update: since the last time i went inside, I have not gone back to eat inside the restaurant butttt i have order some food from there to pick up! I do like their food especially the crepes and biscuits and gravy! The food is 9/10 but the service is a 0/10.

07/24/24 Update: That experience was not pleasant but it did not stop me from ordering food there. I have never gone back there and eat inside, I been ordering my food to go. Overall the food is always super delicious and I do recommend Esmeralda’s to a-lot of people. Since the...