Sunrise Cafe brings the roadside diner to Lighthouse Avenue, and aims for more.

Pancakes or waffles? Short stack or full? A couple of eggs, your way—sunny side up, over easy, scrambled. 

There are decisions to be made at Sunrise Cafe, even when you are pretty sure you know what you want. Eggs Benedict is a classic, except the crab version looks inviting, as does one with Mexican flair—and the “Florentine,” for that matter, with spinach, tomato and mushroom.

In the mood for a sandwich? A burger seems an obvious choice. But the BLT is embellished with an egg. And you haven’t had a turkey club in awhile.

The menu is like a soundtrack of the American highway diner, where bacon and sausage hiss on the flattop and a mound of golden potato wedges show bittersweet scars here and there as they weigh in on skillet dishes.

“I knew what I wanted on the menu,” says chef and owner Ermes Mendoza, who opened the place in early December. “Huevos rancheros, Denver omelet, farmers omelet…”

He could go on, believe me.

Eggs feature on a number of dishes. Breakfast skillets come with three of them. He prepares steak and eggs and French toast. Mendoza’s touch is readily apparent when it comes to basic scrambled eggs—rich yet delicate, full but at the same time so feathery as to be almost ethereal.

Mendoza’s background includes breakfast joints, so he’s well familiar with the staples. He’s also a veteran restaurateur, most recently operating Mauricio’s in Pacific Grove. But Mendoza also worked kitchens at the Lodge in Pebble Beach and Carmel’s standout Grasing’s. Indeed, he renovated the Sunrise Cafe space—new flooring, wiring, tables and so on—while working the fine dining line.

Mention words like rest or relaxation and he just laughs. “The passion is always there,” he says.

Sunrise Cafe occupies the space recently vacated by Pocket Change, next to Pearl Hour on Lighthouse in Monterey. Mendoza and his family have turned it into a bright, inviting space, without abandoning simplicity.

Mendoza was attracted to the storefront because of its location. As you emerge from the tunnel, it is one of the first spots drivers encounter—or the last, if heading toward old Monterey from the Lighthouse district.

It’s also conveniently separated from First Awakenings, on the other end of Lighthouse.

“One person came in and said ‘finally, we have our own breakfast place,’” Brando Mendoza, who works the front of the house, reports.

The menu is not all highway diner brawn. Sunrise Cafe serves pasta, salads, a fish sandwich and other lighter touches. And Mendoza hints that the kitchen may evolve—not just in hours, which for now are 8am-2pm daily; he also expects to introduce more of his fine dining expertise to the menu at some point down the road.

Sunrise Cafe is located at 204 Lighthouse Ave., Monterey. restaurantji.com/ca/monterey/sunrise-cafe-/