The Wild Plum Cafe & Bakery

Amazing breakfast! The best gluten free pancakes I have ever eaten. The atmosphere is super laid back and the staff are very kind. So much food: D I highly recommend eating here.

I was torn between giving this place two or three stars. In the end, the service and taste of the food could not compensate for the irritation I felt.
Irritation #1: Their credit card machine wasn’t working so we had to pay in cash or with a local check. The server said there was an ATM around the corner by 7 – 11. I’m glad we had cash!
Irritation #2: False advertising. I love porchetta sandwiches and am always looking out for them. Since we were coming to Monterey to visit the aquarium, we used Unilocal to find this restaurant because they offered that sandwich. When we were seated, the menu listed it. So, I was pretty excited until I placed my order. I was disappointed to hear that they don’t normally offer it because it is time consuming to make. It was left on the menu because Guy (of DDD) ordered it. Well, take it off the menu if you no longer serve it!
Service was fine except for the aforementioned issues. We had the BLAT sandwich and basil burger. Both were fine except the BLAT sandwich came with cheese in it. Cheese? Really?
Their house potatoes are good. Get them!

We came in for breakfast specifically because they have gluten free pancakes and when we arrived– they were out of gluten free pancake batter! Oh no! So the owner (?) ran out and picked some up and brought it back and made lovely fluffy gluten free pancakes for my son. How nice!
I got regular pancakes which were delicious and my husband got a super good dish called steamed eggs –they are really fluffy and light.
Bathroom is outside and down some stairs. The location is out of the way of all the crazy tourists but it was a super close drive with ample parking. Someone sitting outside had brought a dog and they brought the dog water.
People were so nice– they also have lunch with soups and salads and sandwiches.
If you need a gluten free fix– or just a fresh tasty breakfast– head on over here!

Well when Triple D shows up at a fine establishment, its usually gonna be packed with a lot of people wanting to get the same experiences. Well I didn’t realize Guy’s visit was years ago… And now that the hooplah (isn’t that a word?) Had died down (if they had hooplah). So we tried the place…
Visit on 1÷28÷2016
I want to start off positive (for my wife) the food was good, not great but just good. (Sorry dear thats all I got for you)
Now I’m not a fancy food critic, and not crazy about overloading food with too many seasonings and spices from the ends of the earth to try to cover up a regular old piece of chicken patty but that’s what seemed like what was here .
Not Impressive. So again it was just OK.
Now when you show a nationally known TV host how great you make things and he boasts about it. You would think you could walk right in and order it. NOPE! How dare you think that… Disappointed
Bakery… We ordered 2 pasteries, old and hard!
Not fresh!
Service; that was really bad, I saw a tall man (waiter) when we walked in, then he disapeared, so I had to walk up to the cashier’s counter to get seated.
This person seemed like he didn’t know what or why he was their. I think he was nervous and maybe never waited on people before. Again if I was on national TV blah, blah, blah. You know.
Now we saw the owner come in with groceries in hand, she took them to the back then she came back walked the aisle to say hello, told the tourists hi (us) and spent much more time with the locals, again if this was my place I would make all feel comfortable, blah blah yadda yadda.
Well I’m gonna be nice and give this place 2 stars
But I wanna also add if your establishment is one that survives on people visiting and paying for your services then you either need to step up or step out.
Because theirs a lot of people that won’t return.
Oh and one more FYI to the producers at DD&D’s
«Do you guys even read the reviews before you go to a spot»??
Think about it, its not that hard.
See ya!

This place was ok, nothing special.
The service wasn’t that good, we didn’t even get a hello or how are you. An older lady came around wearing a chefs jacket and she was nice but everyone else seemed too busy to care. The food was ok, I got the smoked salmon, cream cheese and bagel. The one thing I love with this type of food was red onions and they didn’t have any. They brought out sautéed yellow onions. With all the soft textures of the cheese, salmon and bagel it really needed that crush aspect. I would say the only thing that was great was the double mocha that I ordered. No real need to go there again.

I love how fresh tasting the food is. I had the frittata and housemate hot chocolate. The frittata had sun dried tomatoes and came with French bread and rosemary and garlic potatoes. So good and so what I plan to order when I return. I recommended this place to my parents and they loved it too!

Fresh, organic, wholesome food in a friendly, casual and relaxing café. I try to come here for lunch whenever I am in the neighborhood. I’ve had various items on the menu and they are all delicious. The Mediterranean sandwich has grilled veggies and melted cheese, served with a mixed greens salad. I practically inhaled the sandwich and kept eating despite getting full. My dining companions had the Caesar salad with chicken and the Greek pie (or was it a sandwich), which were all reported to be very good. The other companion had the veggie sandwich which he raved about. Try the specialty drinks — they are very good but can quickly add up to a bit of an expensive lunch if you are not careful. For us, it is always a treat to eat here. A note of wisdom — be patient with the service. They are friendly and know the menu but do not be in a rush here. Bring a sweater or jacket because there is no heating in the winter. And the bathroom is a public one around the corner of the building.

Stayed in Monterey two nights and both days had breakfast at The Wild Plum. The coffee was great, waiting staff friendly and attentive, and food was delicious. The pancakes are a must try! Overall very satisfied and will return.

Food is OUTSTANDING! Service is horrible!!! Expect to wait, expect your server along with all other staff to be disorganized

Stopped in to grab a coffee to go. It was pretty busy and the staff seemed cold. Our coffees were hot and tasty. Cute place but not very welcoming.

We came here Thanksgiving morning. They had a smaller than normal menu which had plenty of choices.
The food and service was was great. The décor was nice. There were no heating ducts so in November it was a little cold.

What more can you say when you give a 1 star (only because there’s not an alternative) rating? Bought breakfast for two to go.
Ridiculously slow for not being busy (can see why now.)
Service was sorely lacking along with a poor attitude. Really!!! You couldn’t find a way to separate butter from meal and provide catsup to go?
Food was lousy — ended up throwing it away. Omelette had Costco chicken sausage, and minuscule amounts of cheese and mushrooms. Pancakes undercooked.
Not much more to be said except don’t waste your time or money here.

I’ve been here a couple times and have kept coming back because the food was pretty good, but the service is AWFUL. Today I decided to give it another chance, but have made my final decision that I will not be back.
Server got my order wrong twice, and when I finally got what I had asked for it was cold. He was annoyed that I kept asking for things and gave me and my boyfriend attitude.
They take forever, have no clue what they are doing and are completely unfriendly and unprofessional.
I won’t be back.

Took 45 minutes for food to come,
–kept bringing me wrong orders,
–never ended up with silverware,
–food was cold.

My wife and I came here for breakfast. We were served by Garret. He was courteous, respectful, awesome. We had a BLAST. The food was amazing. I got the Pan Scramble and LOVED it. My wife got the breakfast burrito.
We got 5-​Star service for sure!
–update–
We came back the next day because we became fans at this point. This time we were served by Erika. The Pan Scramble was still amazing, everything else was pretty lame.
Food was late. Toast was cold. Waitress was scatterbrained, she kept arguing with another worker, we had to keep asking her for butter. By the time we got the butter the toast was cold and hard.
I usually tip generously. This time I only tipped $ 1 for the $ 30 meal… However, disappointed again… I’m just looking at the receipt. It looks like our waitress baked in an extra $ 4 into the visa receipt. Not cool to force my hand to a tip that wasn’t deserved.
I would give this particular experience a 2 star rating.

Do you have a three hour lunch break? Want to spend half of it waiting for your food? Come to the wild plum!
I’m writing this review while STILL waiting for my food (it’s been 1.5 hrs). I’ll finish the review once my food arrives.
Nothing impressive so far — side salads are just spinach and carrots arranged unimaginatively on the plate. The food SMELLS good, but only two out of the four from my party have gotten food yet.
Hurrah. Food is here! The potatoes are flavorless. The eggs are still a bit runny in my omelete. I asked for sour cream on the side, but they shoved it in the omelete. Guess it’d be hard to remember what somebody ordered after a FULL HOUR AND HALF.
Don’t come here ever unless you’ve got time to kill and aren’t hungry at all.

We had a very mixed review at our table of 6.
The kids did not like their food. We’re talking about simple stuff like pancakes and scrambled eggs with cheese. None of them thought it very good.
I had a decent Cobb Salad. I found it not worth the trouble.
My husband was the main person that liked his food. He had the Northwest Melt — which is basically a salmon scramble with mushrooms and cheese. It was the best dish on the table. The fruit served with our meals was nice.
I agree with other assessments of the service here. They moved slowly and they were unapologetic about it to boot. The staff was incredibly disorganized. We watched the frustrations of other tables while we waited almost 30 minutes for our food. Also — it was a little more price-​y than I expected.
As some people have noted, I don’t know why Diners Drive-​Ins & Dives featured this place. It is neither that good nor any of those D’s.

I am so disappointed but the service was terrible. My friend and I stood by the door respecting the sign that says «please sign in and someone will be there to seat you.» We stood there for a good 3 minutes while a guy at the counter all across the other side of the room just stood there looking at us.
I looked back like «um…are you going to just stare or should we seat ourselves?» He pretty much motioned to sit anywhere we liked. If it was go ahead and seat yourselves, then get rid of the sign!
On top of that, the lady gave us our menus and I was reading the menu board on the wall and she tells me ‘oh, don’t read that. That hasn’t been updated for a while.’ From this point, I don’t know what to read and not take seriously about this place.
We get our waters and then we sit… and sit… 5 minutes, 10 minutes. the lady that gave us our menus swoops by and ask if we were finished with our menus and takes mine. Because «we’re out of menus and other folks need it now.» WHAT THE!!! Um… are you not going to take my order first?! We sit there again for another 3 minutes (oh yes I timed it) and I noticed that the wait staff took the orders of two other parties that came in AFTER us. So menu-​less and already over it at this point, right when we were about to leave, the wait staff comes up and ask what we would like to order.
Since I know I am never coming back to this place, I look at my partner, ask what she would like to do and she stares back at me like she’s over it so I look back at the wait staff and said «I think we’re going to another place. Thanks.»
Got up and left.
mic drop.

The Wild Plum Café was featured in Diner, Drive-​Ins, and Dive and it turned out to be just across the street from my hotel in Monterey. I wouldn’t call Wild Plum a diner, drive-​in or a dive. I did not find any of the outrageous comfort food that is so commonly featured in DD&D. What I did find was a very chill little coffee shop and bakery.
I had their Eggs Light and Fluffy and a muffin. The eggs are a very creative and healthy alternative version of the scrambled eggs — they are steamed. I always feel good when I order a healthy alternative at any meal but I could not say that the eggs wowed me. The muffin was very tasty but much of it stuck to the paper cup they were baked in, leaving me to look like a savage as I tried to scrape the rest of the muffin with my teeth — at least they were tasty enough for that.
Next time? I heard DDD’s Guy Fieri had their pancakes. If I am ever in the area again that’s what I will try.

It’s hard enough for me to agree to go do breakfast when it’s my least favorite meal of the day. To add insult to injury are long waits, incorrect orders, and terrible service, of which The Wild Plum has all three.
The first visit I thought was a coincidence, we were there waiting for a table (a specific table), we were told that we were just waiting for them to clean and reset it, and then they sat another couple there. Not wanting to be presumptuous, we asked it they had called ahead to get in front of us or something and turns out they just randomly sat them at our table. This happened TWICE. Finally my fiancé and I actually had to sit at a dirty table to make sure we actually got seated. Then it took them almost 40 minutes to make our food, of which my pancakes and his chorizo sandwich were both wrong. We were ravenous by that time so we ate it anyway.
After church with my parents, they suggested we go there, seeing it online, and we decided to give them another shot, figuring it was a one-​off bad day they had last time we were there. Sadly no, because again we were unseated two separate times, and during the span of our dining there, I counted another two parties who had the same problems.
The food itself isn’t even worth the wait, or the drama. On our return visit as a group we ordered the Breakfast Burrito, the Chorizo Burrito, the Veggie Scramble and the Lox with Bagel, with an apple cinnamon pull-​apart. The breakfast burrito was dry, horribly plated, and overly salty, the chorizo burrito was the only redeeming dish, with spicy chorizo but too much potato, the veggie scramble was topped with avocado that smelled musty and too ripe, and they brought my bagel and lox out deconstructed with bread, because they ran out of bagels and didn’t think to ask if that mattered. Also the salmon was on top of my fruit salad and made the salmon taste like melon, and the honeydew taste like fish.
Definitely not returning. I wanted them to be a winner, with their overly priced proclaimed concept of «fresh, organic, and sustainable American bistro fare,» but if you’re cranky, hungry, and irritated by the time the food gets to you, and that food isn’t even what you ordered, what’s the use?