Ellen’s is a large place in Casa Linda Plaza.  It supposedly has more locations but the downtown one has been closed some time now.  This location opened in July 2023 and originally was open for dinner but now they are open daily for lunch and breakfast, 7am till 3pm.  It took about 2 years to open the location and I’m not sure how they stay in business as we were the only customers the morning we visited.  The restaurant company was founded in 2012 with this location being its third and bills itself as serving Southern comfort food.  The elaborate buidling takes up the corner in the shopping center with a lot of parking available.   Inside is a full bar and walls decorated with photos.  Seating is in booths, benchs, tables and hi-tops by the bar.  Music is in the background of the bright space made so by lighting and lots of windows.  The butcher block tables are good sized and service was helpful, friendly and efficient.  The food however was mediocre, I’m sorry to say.  We got some of the servers recommended plates but most of the food was still on the table when we left.  I suspect something on the menu could have been better but not sure what that would be.  Let me know if you go and find something good.

Set up

Food

Chilaquiles comes with a choice of meat served with fried tortilla strips covered with green salsa, queso fresco and Mexican crema and eggs your way.  With the servers recomendation we chose the bistec suave (over pork tinga or grilled chicken), green salsa (over red) and scrambled eggs.  The eggs were average scrambled eggs but the meat was dry and tasteless.  The green sauce had no spice to it and an equal amount of flavor.  The parts are separate in what I believe is a traditional Mexican style but they all needed something.

One of their Signature breakfasts is the Pancake Pot Pie which is layers of pancakes, maple cream sausage gravy, bacon, sausage, hash browns, scrambled eggs, cheddar cheese and served with maple syrup on the side.  Sounded way too interesting not to try.  However there were very few hashbrowns and they were on the bottom of the bowl so their crispness couldn’t really add texture.  The pancakes weren’t bad on their own but between  the sweet gravy and syrup the salt of the ‘sweet and salty’ plate was lost.    It was topped with a huge pile of scrambled eggs and cheese but there was no cheese anywhere else in the dish.  It was a large, heavy portion of food that sounded way better than it tasted.