Monterrey Of Smyrna — Restaurant in Smyrna

Inside, the restaurant is divey but in a good way. There's a full bar with stools and plenty of tables and booths toward the back, along with outdoor patio seating. We were seated in a booth and chips and salsa landed on our table moments later. We also ordered guacamole on a whim, and our server asked, "Chunky?" with a tone that suggested that was the proper way to go.

She was right. The bigs chunks of avocado in Monterrey's version of guacamole tastes fresher, with a generous spritz of citrus. It was hard not to eat our way through the large basket of chips before our entrees arrived, not only because our apps were tasty, but also because our food much arrived faster we expected.

The husband ordered the Acapulco Cheesesteak from the lunch specials menu (which is - happy note - offered on Saturdays!). I wish I could tell you how it tasted but it disappeared down his gullet before I could ask for a bite, so I suppose that's saying something. I chose the flautas from the dinner menu, which was teeming with food. The flautas are enormous and generously filled with chicken or pulled pork. Though satisfyingly crunchy, I found they really needed the accompanying sour cream, veg, and guacamole sauce (and perhaps even a few splats of hot sauce) to really jazz up the flavor because they didn't have a ton on their own.

Service was extremely fast at the start but a little slow toward the end. Our waitress was difficult to find when we were ready for our check, so we had to flag down another of her colleagues. But another way to look at it is that customers aren't rushed out at the end of their meal here.

...which is important because after a meal of this size, you're probably going to want to sit for a good few minutes to...

5/4/2025 update. We (3 adults) went around 515 for dinner. After a short wait we were seated in a small booth in the very busy intersection of the inside seating and the inside “annex” where they often seat larger groups. The food was as good as ever, but the service is sliding. Two entrees came in reasonable time, but mine came 4-5 minutes later (nothing special about the dish). We enjoyed our food but my son drank his fountain soda but we couldn’t get out or any other waiters to stop while they went back and forth to other tables. We finally got a different server to stop after 5-6 minutes. And then we really waited. We assumed the waiter would bring a refill fairly quickly since we complained nicely about the food and initial refill delays. The refill came about 8-9 minutes later, after the second waiter delivered food orders to two other tables. We really like Monterey, but we hope their service issues are resolved by the next time we go. I dropped the overall rating to a 4 due to the service this time. I could have gone lower but the food is still excellent.

Original review: Another great find. There are a lot of decent Mexican restaurants around us but we tried this one after a recommendation from a long-term resident in the area. The food was excellent. It was fresh, tasty with good-sized quantities, and the marinated chicken was not overcooked. I would have rated the food a 6 if possible! We took advantage of the weather and ate on the patio. We enjoyed the art (forgot to take a picture of the colorful mural), but the street noise was a little loud at times. The restaurant could use a “refresh,” especially in the bathrooms. Our server was friendly and helpful. We will definitely be returning to try...

Miguel,

I'm editing this because I assure you. There was NO MISUNDERSTANDING. I already emailed you when leaving the restaurant and haven't received a response. Your server told me, "Why are you speaking Spanish bro? I don't want to speak Spanish with you bro. Bro, why are you speaking Spanish?" Miguel, I have spoken Spanish with every server there to the delight of my nephews. The server also grabbed the menu out from under my hands because he was annoyed. Ask any of the family members he was also referring to as "bro". We obviously still tipped and the guy didn't apologize despite me speaking with Marcos. No excuse. Why would anyone pay to be treated like that? He speaks Spanish with other patrons. Why not me? Interesting. You know what's unfortunate? I tutor my nephew all week for his advanced placement Spanish class and what does he see? This immature guy getting annoyed when a customer is speaking Spanish in a Mexican restaurant with music playing in Spanish, items on the menu in Spanish and servers speaking with each other in Spanish as well as some customers. What does that say to people trying to make an effort???

We have been here easily over 100 times. Today, we had the rudest server we've ever had. I'm still surprised by what was said to me. A patron should not be spoken to how I was in any restaurant. I spoke with the manager, Marcos, and there was no apology. My 76 year old mom had never seen a server speak to a customer like...