A block from the games of chance, the soft-serve, and the Skyscraper ride that towers over the Seaside Heights boardwalk, Montes Cafe serves the culinary traditions of Puebla, Mexico. For ten years Celso and Blanca Montes and their family have brought the dishes of Puebla to Seaside Heights — birria tacos, cemitas and chalupas, with a side of ambiente familiar.
Every dish we make at Montes Cafe is an homage to where we came from, and an invitation to go there. “Authentic” is a word restaurants give themselves, and on its own it means very little. A menu earns it only if the food can carry you to the place it came from.
Celso and Blanca Montes opened Montes Cafe after years working in restaurants around Seaside Heights. They are from Puebla, Mexico — the home of mole poblano — and they set out to open a Mexican kitchen that cooked the dishes and the flavors of home. What they built is a place where locals and visitors get the food of Puebla, and the warmth of the Montes family with it.
Our family is from Puebla, and Puebla’s cooking is its history. Cemitas and chalupas did not arrive fully formed. They are the result of centuries of home kitchens, market stands and restaurants refining ingredients and techniques that came from Mexico, the Middle East and Europe, until they became something belonging to one state. We cook those dishes on the Boulevard the way they are cooked at home.
Birria reached us differently. The Spanish brought goats to Mexico in the 16th century; the meat was tough and strong-tasting, so cooks in Jalisco marinated it in native chiles and cooked it low and slow until it gave in. The Spanish wanted no part of it and called it birria, a word for something worthless. Then in 1950 Don Guadalupe Zárate left Coatzingo, a small town in Puebla, for Tijuana, and made his birria with beef because beef cost less than goat. He put more liquid in the pot, and that is where the consomé came from. The birria people line up for across this country traces back to a man from our home state.
The birria goes on early, and while it simmers we make the day’s salsa and cut the ingredients for the soups. All of it is made fresh that morning. Nothing carries over — the birria pot is emptied at night and started again the next day. We represent Puebla, and we have to get the flavors of home as close as possible, because if we don’t, our fellow Pueblans will let us know.
Our daughters grew up in this restaurant. They learned to cook and to serve standing next to us. We built this place as a family, and that is what makes every day in it special. Our friends work here too, and they are family. We serve locals from Seaside Heights and Seaside Park, and families from Puebla, and we think of everyone who eats with us at Montes Cafe as family.
Our family is from Puebla, and the proof is who eats here. The booths fill with locals, with visitors who found us a block off the boardwalk, and with families who came north from Puebla the way we did. That last group is the one that tells us we are getting it right.
Montes Cafe has been a fixture in Seaside Heights for ten years, the last seven at 609 Boulevard. We are not competing with the boardwalk businesses selling cheesesteaks and Italian ices through twelve weeks of summer. We made 609 Boulevard our home because we wanted to serve locals, visitors and fellow Pueblans year round.
We focus on the food so you can focus on what to drink with it. There is no bar at Montes Cafe and no margarita machine, so bring your own bottle and we will never charge you to open it. Order direct from us, or call (732) 250-4101, and Celso or another member of the family will bring it to your door. We do not use third-party apps for our own deliveries — the person arriving with your order is part of the family that cooked it, and it gives us a chance to say thank you.
The restaurant is an extension of our family’s kitchen — the dishes of our birthplace, and our customers as extended family.
Order online for pickup or delivery, or stop in at 609 Boulevard. BYOB — bring your own, we will bring the flavor.
