Monty’s Good Burger: What’s Vegetarian Editorial Review

Monty’s Good Burger in Echo Park serves fully vegan fast food that doesn’t taste like a substitute for anything. Start with the Double Cheeseburger ($17.99), two Impossible patties stacked with melted dairy-free cheddar, grilled onions, house pickles, and a tangy house spread on a soft brioche bun. Add the 50/50, half shoestring fries and half tater tots for $6.99. Nashville Hot Charlie’s Chicken Sandwich ($17.99) brings actual heat instead of a token drizzle, and the Chopped Kale Caesar Salad gives you something lighter that still earns its spot on the board. Round things out with a shake, Oreo and Travis’ Oat Matcha Latte are the two flavors regulars mention most.

Every item on this menu is plant-based, full stop. Impossible patties stand in for beef, Follow Your Heart cheese melts the way dairy does, and nothing containing meat, dairy, or eggs enters the building. That checks out across the restaurant’s own site, HappyCow, and OpenStreetMap’s tags, all three agree. Vegans can order anything on the board without a single follow-up question for the counter staff. Bring meat-eating friends and nobody has to compromise, the burgers just have to taste good on their own, and reviewers keep saying they do.

Kitchen situation: there’s no cross-contamination question to ask, because there’s no meat or dairy anywhere on site to contaminate anything. Posted allergen warnings cover soy, wheat, and nuts, a shared-equipment note that matters for allergy sufferers, not for anyone avoiding animal products. That’s about as clean a setup as this kind of directory ever finds.

Now the practical stuff. Prices run well above drive-through territory. Singles start around $15, doubles and the chicken sandwiches land near $18, and a combo meal with a drink tops $20 before tax. One reviewer pegged a small meal for two at close to $60. It isn’t cheap, but portions are generous and the execution backs up the price more than most fast-casual vegan spots manage. Expect counter service: order at the register or through the app, grab a number, find a seat. No reservations, none needed, none offered.

Good for a fast weeknight dinner, a group hangout split between vegans and omnivores, or a late run since the kitchen stays open until 1am on Friday and Saturday. Every other day it runs noon to 11pm. You’ll find it at 1533 W Sunset Blvd, on the corner of Sunset and Laveta Terrace, in a building that used to hold Lot 1 Cafe.

This isn’t a lone operator chasing a trend. Founders Lexie Jiaras, Max Angles, and Dennis Gomez started Monty’s as a Coachella food stall in 2018 and named it after Jiaras’s dog. Echo Park got its own location in August 2019, the chain’s third at the time. Two later outposts in Riverside and Culver City shut down as rent and delivery fees squeezed multi-location operators, a real setback the brand has been open about. Echo Park and the Koreatown location both survived that contraction and stayed busy, judging by thousands of reviews still rolling in on Yelp this year. A vegan burger stand that’s outlasted two of its own sister locations and kept pulling steady crowds for going on seven years has earned some trust.

Order the double cheeseburger and see whether you can tell it apart from the real thing. Most people can’t.