What a disappointing place. The waiter seated us in a banquette with torn upholstery...and when I asked for another place, found ANOTHER banquette with torn upholstery. We should have guessed from that. The waiter failed to mention any specials, but left a menu of uninspired, to my eyes, choices. As the room was cold I ordered a cup of soup to warm up. Now, I presume it was already made up and should have arrived immediately, if not sooner but it took a long long time, and finally arrived lukewarm, along with a salad for one of our party and some shamefully salty biscuits which were otherwise alright but would have been better if some jam had been offered and some salt subtracted.. I ate the chilly soup and we all waited; and waited; and eventually another plate of over-salted biscuits arrived, the rest of our food, and a half-baked apology for keeping us waiting so long...might I mention that the restaurant, by now no surprise, was by no means bursting with customers. There was a burger (fries a separate charge and too greasy to eat according to one of our numbers), a chicken salad...pieces of chicken on greens and no other veggies, protein, fruit or anything remotely interesting on the plate, fried chicken,,,nothing to write home about. They were out of one of the pies that one of us wanted, and could offer only one topping for ice cream. Not going back, just saying.

When we moved to Georgetown a year ago, the first place I wanted to try was the Monument Cafe. We had seen it on Diner's, Drive-ins and Dives on Food TV. (They still rerun this episode frequently, I think because Matthew McConaughey drove up from Austin to join the host. They made their signature dish, King Ranch Casserole which looked great and the guys raved about. One our first time, I was surprised that it was not on the menu. The waitress told us they had changed their menu the week before we came, for the first time in the 10 years she had been there. Hard to believe they dropped a dish that was airing nationally probably once a month. But we came back several times. What we ended up finding was a menu that was surprisingly small for a huge diner. The food quality was inconsistent. But the one thing that was consistent was the service. It was very poor. Many times we ate an early dinner. One more than one occasion was saw several servers standing around a booth in the back talking to a group that was obviously friends of theirs and ignoring their customers. After trying a half dozen times (we had gotten a gift card for the restaurant) we have stopped trying. We might go back, but not any time soon.

We arrived early on Saturday evening, about 5,and the cafe was not yet busy. We were seated promptly and served our drinks. I ordered chicken fried steak and asked if I could sub french fries for the mashed potatoes...........not available. Then for a side I requested a small dinner salad......not available as a side. I settled for the mashed potatoes. When the plate came, I was appalled with the sight of the CFS.. It was a small thin piece of meat the breading was hardly cooked and was falling off the steak. I've had many chicken fried steaks and they come in a variety of sizes and appearances but for $10, this was the poorest presentation I have ever seen. I was disappointed. I had been to Monument before and was pleased with service and food but something has definitely changed for the worst. I won't return.

Had BREAKFAST there this morning. Had to wait a bit (NORMAL) Big Heavy set hostess asked are you ---? Said yes. she in a VERY HATEFUL VOICE said "I have already paged you twice). Asked her how she did that as I did not give her any phone number or receive a pager! I asked her what number she used and she VERY QUICKLY changed the subject! If she treated my party like this how many others has she BELITTLED? She DEFINATELY doesn't need to be working there! Waitress was EXTREMELY KIND & COURTEOUS! Food came out quick and was GREAT!!!!!!!!!!

The Monument Cafe is a Georgetown landmark. Serving American Diner food is a great place to stop for a bite when you are in Downtown Georgetown since it is only a block off the Square. The food is adequate but the desserts are the best. The Chocolate Pie is a signature dish and I recommend it to anyone having a meal there. You can get breakfast all day long and there is a market adjoining the diner that carries and interesting selection of food and drinks.