Monty’s Good Burger
$$ Burgers, Vegan, Fast Food
516 S Western Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90020
3.5 Stars!
The basic vegan burger was an incredible vegan burger but every fiber of my being can’t reconcile paying $11 for a burger that’s served by itself around a piece of paper. I’ve had vegan burgers from all over the world, and this is something I would expect paying $6-8 or perhaps barely more than $10 with fries or something else thrown in for the price tag. I came here expecting that it included the fries or tater tots. Oh no. God no! Those are $4 extra. (I was speechless looking at a $16 price tag with tax on the total!) I had a really awkward interaction with the guy who was putting in my order until I realized that I was the one who was being a completely confused entitled crazy person.
I have a hopeful feeling that a lot of the price goes to a living wage for all of the workers and it’s not just the pretension of the expensive quality ingredients of the lettuce, for example. But living wage or not, it’s NOT the living wager’s burger! If you’re not working at a cushy PR firm and willing to pay for it, it IS worth trying! What made this burger special was how the patty was so finely grilled and moist, and the cheese was gooey soft, that it tasted incredible around their soft potato bun. It was probably one of the ‘closest to the real thing’ type of vegan burgers I’ve ever tried that could be comparable to a good fast food restaurant’s burger. You have to have the technological innovation in fake meat preparation to get a patty to taste like this. And the one hopeful thing to me is that in five years, there will be a lot more (and cheaper) burgers like just like theirs. This is not to devalue this burger I enjoyed, however, because there is definitely a skill in grilling a burger to taste like this.
Finally, the sauce! I sort of did the Free Sauce Yelp Check-In wrong, and felt really embarrassed because I ended up getting a side sauce I probably wasn’t entitled to. I got to try the garlic aioli inside the burger and the ranch dressing as a ‘dip’ outside of it. I could hardly taste the garlic aioli at all inside of the burger and tasted no different than the ranch, which kind of bummed me out. So I am not sure if it was garlic aioli that was put into the burger. Or if I was confused yet again. And I am taking into consideration that this garlic aioli is apparently a house favorite according to the guy who I was talking to. So I was hoping for a punch of garlic. Nevertheless, if there is a next time, I need to not be confused and get more garlic aioli sauce.
Useful: 15 Funny: 6 Cool: 6
8/28/2018
Owner Response:
Chris,
Im sorry about your lackluster experience at Monty’s. I assure you that your review and thoughts are very meaningful to us.
First off, send me your email address so I can refund your money through PayPal. We do not want anyone to be unsatisfied with the food, service or concept.
Pricing…. we know it’s expensive. It’s by design. We start our staff at $15/hour, use only compostable products and source our produce within 30 miles. Except for the cookies that come from Phoenix. The impossible patties cost 6x any other vegan option. Although you may know of and like other products more, we have specifically chosen Impossible based on the alignment of our mission to get meat eaters to consume less real meat.
We absolutely know that the pricing is not for everyone. As the impossle pricing comes down, we will adjust accordingly. But for now, our costs are extremely high.
These are not excuses or reason to say that your opinion doesn’t matter. It matters and we listen and learn from every review we read.
Again, I’m sorry you had a bad experience and hope this info gives you a bit more background.
Thank you for reading,
Barry