We couldn't stay because they wouldn't accept my brother's 23 year-old girlfriend's WA driver's license because "it's one of the vertical ones." Yes, I'm serious. Wait 'til you get to the city to eat. read more

The prawn plate is awesome! Prawn is fresh and yummy The baked potato is also perfect. read more

Mount Rainier Railroad Dining - American Near Me - Elbe, Washington

- Décor. 5 stars. Very unique - Wait time to be seated: 5 stars. No wait time at all. - Service: 4 stars. Service was friendly and prompt and we got what we asked for. - Food: 1 star. The food we had was bland and uninspired. - Cost: 1 star. Prices for our food was pretty over the top in my view. I have driven by this restaurant many times on my way to Mt. Rainier and have always wanted to stop in and sample their food. This past week (5/28/15), I took my wife here for lunch with great expectation. I love the idea of eating in a railroad car, and couldn't wait to see what they had to offer. I was pretty disappointed. Like another reviewer has aptly said, "The food was mediocre." I would add that while the service was friendly, and the atmosphere was unique, I wasn't impressed by the food AT ALL. It completely lacks imagination, which the whole idea of eating in a railroad car suggests: uniqueness and "memorableness." The food was anything but. My thought upon leaving this establishment was, it's really too bad this spot looks so attractive and has the promise of a unique dining experience from the outside but the food is so insanely dull, ordinary, and overpriced. I wouldn't mind paying their prices if the food was more memorable. Sadly, many of the establishments I have visited trade on their location, view, or atmosphere but simply wimp out on the food, as this place does. I ordered a simple burger with soup (Chicken/asparagus the day I was here). The burger was a thin quarter pounder with fresh lettuce, tomato, pickle chips and their special sauce. For $8.99 it wasn't any better than going to McDonald's (and they charge way less...). The sauce on the burger was "OK," but again didn't have any zip to it. The soup was "hearty", but a pretty small serving containing 1 piece of carrot, 1 piece of asparagus, and 1 chunk of chicken. The rest was 90% noodles in a sauce that was soooo bland. I wouldn't exactly call it "soup" (see my photo) My wife ordered a plate of their French fries ($7.99). They were soggy, dark brown (how much food was cooked in that oil before the fries reached our table?), and tasteless. McD's, Burger King, A&W - you name the burger joint - all of them produce fries 10x better than this. My advice? Pass this one up unless you are content to spend a lot of money for just another meal. read more

The current 2 1/2 star rating caused me concern, but I'm relieved to say my experience was better than that. The blue cheese burger was good, and everyone else was satisfied with their dishes. Service was friendly and attentive, and dining in a railroad car is a plus! read more

if i could leave 0 stars i would but food was horrible, very oily pasta and had whole pieces of garlic, burger was soaking wet. NOT covid friendly! she was not wearing her mask correctly while making food. read more

I have been to a ton of restaurant But have never been discriminated and rude to. They need to fire Theresa! So my friend and I decided to try this place out especially because we were starving from hiking at mt rainier all day long and wanted to try dining inside a train. We arrived and asked to be seated in the main train cabin and was told it was reserved and that was a lie. read more

Not so much. We came here for lunch while on a road trip (5/29/11) and it was passable, but not worth the price. The "railroad dining car" experience seemed like it would be cool, but to us it seemed to be in need of an update. The food wasn't that good and seemed expensive for what we got. I wasn't able to check in here because I didn't get cell service... that was kind of annoying, but small town life I suppose. I would've rather gone to the burger joint across the street! read more

Such a cute place! As soon as you hit the street that this train is on, it looks like you've went back in time to a little town in the 30s.. Or.. Whenever =P Lol. I can see how this place got a few bad reviews, because it is quite expensive and the food is so-so, but I did enjoy it. I say the food is so-so because I ordered the nachos, which are $11 I believe, which is expensive to begin with, and then I'm given completely stale and old chips. Also, the cheese was obviously from a bag of shredded cheese, which is fine, but I feel as if they just took it out of the bag and threw it on top. It wasn't melted at all. The server brought over our bill before we were done (we wanted dessert) and then I mentioned to her that the chips were stale. All she really said was, "Oh.. I'm sorry" and then went off to get our dessert. I don't think she wanted the hassle of voiding anything off of the receipt, so we ended up getting our cobbler and ice cream for free. That was fine, as long as I got something out of the nachos being stale. I will say this though - had they not been stale, they would have been good nachos. It's a huge portion and it has everything nachos should, but again, stale...... Very stale... I also got the Frank's hot wings, which were amazing. Definitely a fan of those. I love that they give you a side of the sauce so you can cover it in more hot sauce. Mmmm! My boyfriend got some sort of BBQ burger, which looked good, as well. Nothing amazing, it was just a burger, but not bad. If I ever go back that way, I would definitely come back here. Really, it's the only place around or when you're headed to Mt. Rainier that doesn't just serve pizza or burgers. It's such a cute place, too. I just hope they check on the freshness of their food. =\ read more

Mount Rainier Railroad Dining - Blackberry cobbler and ice cream - American Near Me - Elbe, Washington

I could spend a lot of time writing how awful (make that GOD-awful) this place is. Elk burger - right. "Where's the beef" must've been coined here. And the POS burger was $13! The "cobbler" was served in a parfait glass - no crust. But if like your cheap wine with a side of lipstick on the rim of the glass, this could be for you. Totally over-priced and completely under-whelming. Do yourself and your GI tract a favor and keep driving. read more

Wanted to respond to earlier reviews re: food and pricing. This isn't a place for a large group, it's a skinny train car, what do you expect? And yes, I was puzzling over the $10 for a "starter" of fries--but found great value and deliciousness at lunch w the portobello burger + yummy sweet potato waffle fries on the side: a huge meal for ~$15, I didn't eat dinner after that. The dining car looks like it was remodeled in the '80s, and the holiday garlands were still up in April, but hey, you're in Elbe, near beautiful Mt. Rainier, and how often to you get to eat in an old train car w a fake plastic fireplace, w Bob Seger playing in the background? Just go with it, have some fun. Nice overworked waitstaff too. read more

Wow!!! The bacon cheeseburger was great and our server was very friendly and gave great service. Will definitely be back

The food wasn't anything that great, but the atmosphere is so awesome and old school. read more

Mount Rainier Railroad Dining - American Near Me - Elbe, Washington

Fun dining experience with good (but maybe not excellent) food and great service! The onion blossom with aioli sauce was a great way to start our meal. For the main dish, I had an elk burger, which I believe to be slightly over priced, but it was good nonetheless. The homemade blue cheese dressing I had on my side salad was divine. The best part of the experience was our waitress (I think her name was Pia) who was super friendly and attentive to our dining needs. read more

The rating kinda scared me when I opened yelp to get recommendations about the menu. But actually the food tasted great(and among the biggest portion i ever seen) and service is pretty enthusiastic. Got to say the 2.5 rating is not very fair. read more

Mount Rainier Railroad Dining - Bread crumb prawn - American Near Me - Elbe, Washington

Greasy, stinky fried food. I had a burger with greasy onions on top. My kids had fish and fries and they looked dark and heavy with oil. The fresh green salad had a bunch of oily croutons on top. I would never, ever go back to Mt Rainier Railroad Dining Co. read more

I cannot explain what a joke this event is. A large group of us did this on Mothers Day. Fortunately the weather was great, unfortunately that was the only good part. This is a slow train ride through the country side while seeing trailors, mobile homes, refridgerators in a field, etc. The cost $50 should have been refunded upon return. Mineral Lake is uneventful. The meal was okay. Much more recommend driving through the park, a hike, or really anything else. read more

My son saw this place and wanted to eat here, so I figured we would give it a try. (He's 4 and loves trains.) Big mistake! I ordered the potato soup in a bread bowl and he ordered the kid's pasta with butter and sprinkle cheese. Our food was out in less than a minute...literally. How do they freshly cook an entire plate of pasta in less than one minute? It either was sitting there pre-cooked or old and then microwaved. Anyway...My son has never had pasta he doesn't like, but was even grossed out by it. It was completely mushy...literally the texture of mashed potatoes. So gross. As he was trying to cut it with his fork it was mushing up:( My soup looked promising however, but had no flavor. It was the texture of thick gravy, and I couldn't even tell what was in it because it was so bland. Big disappointment. I was also surprised it was almost $30 for just a bowl of soup, a kids meal and a drink. The only reason this place gets two stars is because the server was really nice. read more

Such a cute idea! The good was excellent. Servings were large enough to share and the Death by Chocolate dessert was large enough for four!

The fact that this restaurant is in a train is what makes it. If it wasn't in the train, it would have 1 star. The host was very busy and seemed annoyed that we were there at first, but was friendly for the most part. The waitress was very good, and the food came quickly. The food definitely could have been better... However it was not bad at all and overall, just the experience of eating on a train is great. There were some small fruit fly type bugs that kept flying around which was really annoying. It's not somewhere I would regularly eat at, and I am content with going once, but it was fun. Overall I would recommend trying it out.. The bar itself looked fun too! Definitely a worthwhile experience in my opinion. read more

Service was great. Diner was clean. Food is terrible. I was expecting diner food but not terrible diner food. I ordered a 3-piece Fried Chicken dinner, they came out and told me they were out of chicken pieces and if it would be okay to use smaller chicken pieces and they would provide more of the smaller pieces. I said sure, I'm not picky, and when the food came out the chicken ended up tasting like leftover chicken that was re-battered and re-fried. It was dry, the batter was gummy. One of the pieces was inedible because it was all just bone & veins with no meat. The corn on the cob they served was extremely old and tasted like left overs too. We stopped in at a normal dinner time (but it was not busy) and the food took awhile to get out to us so I am unsure why everything tasted left over. My boyfriend had a pulled pork wrap and said everything was very cold. He said that pulled pork would have been decent if it wasn't dried out from sitting in the fridge. The fries were good though, we both shared that. The prices don't make sense for the quality of food you receive. $20 plate for the quality of a Denny's $8 dollar steak dinner. We were hoping this was more like a Diners, Drive Ins and Dive kind of find, but it definitely was just ended up being an extremely overpriced non-breakfast perkins/denny's in a really cool train. read more

Keep going. Do not stop. The lemonade was good, service was good but the food was not that great

Fun dinner and great vegetarian options! I really enjoyed the veggie burger. It's not your typical veggie burger in that there is no actual patty; the "burger" is grilled/sautéed veggies on a bun, and it was delicious. The sweet potato fries were also excellent. Loved the quirky environment. It was a really unique place. read more

Hate to give a bad review, but they deserved it. Let's start with there was no one to greet us. When we were seated we were given children's menus with no crayons. My daughter had to ask them for them and they provided 2 BROKEN half crayons. asked if they had other types of hamburger buns instead of sesame. The waitress said no. I told her that sesame was ok just not my favorite. She then insisted on trying to give me a piece of bread or a burger wrapped in lettuce. I think she was TRYING to offer good service, but since I had refused the other substitutions she should have just left it. She kept asking which came across as arguing. When "all" of our food arrived it was cold and we received it after people who were seated. I never received my burger at all. The waitress told me it was my choice to not have a burger. She demanded I get my burger if I needed it. It took 45 minutes for the first round of food. I didn't have another 45 minutes to wait. She ignored me and insisted. Again, arguing not customer service. I had to flag down some one else and told the new girl plainly "the food is bad, almost inedible, the service is bad, I need my check so I can leave now please." Our waitress popped back up almost immediately and offered us desert. I would have complained to a manger but I had the distinct impression there wasn't one. Maybe the owner will read the review. Overall service slow, no refills, poorly trained staff. Food cold, unoriginal, unappealing. Enough sauce dropped off the burgers for 3 more sandwiches. read more

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First things first, amazing sweet potato fries. Hands down the best around. If you have issues with small spaces don't go here. Its a quaint place to go. The food is average and a little on the pricy side. The view on the other hand is amazing and our server was great. She had outstanding table side manner and checked up on us. The drive to Elbe makes this place worth while. I might go back if the bar and grill across the street is closed or I want some amazing sweet potato fries. They could however use a few air fresheners and rip out their ols stained carpet. read more

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Great customer service.. our server zach was super awesome would give him 5 stars! I had the monte cristo and my boyfriend had the elk burger. Zac was awesone and had the cook prepare me au jus, when it wasnt on menu! The elk burger on the other hand was just a plain burger.. nothing too fancy. Oh the black berry/ strawberry lemonade was the shiz! Cute diner. Most definitely would go back. read more

Mount Rainier Railroad Dining - Yummy lemonades - American Near Me - Elbe, Washington

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Only way it would get 5 stars is if the price was a little less. Everything flagged as home made is amazing. Most definitely would go again for the blue cheese burger. read more

I had the trainwreck burger with fries and the blooming onion for an appetizer and I thought the food was some of the best I've had visiting Washington! read more

We visited this restaurant for the second time on Aug 19 to give it another chance. Unfortunately, we were disappointed again. I don't remember a lot about the first time (about 4 years ago), but I remember not being overly impressed with the burger I ate and my father-in-law, who had the spaghetti, said it was horrible. On this second visit, my wife and I ordered salads. I had the Chicken Blue Cheese and my wife ordered the Garden Salad. We were hesitant to spend 17 bucks each for a salad (yes, 17 dollars!), but we are both dieting and figured it was a our healthiest option. We ordered chicken tenders and fries for the kids. First let me say, when you see the salad, your jaw will drop. It's HUGE. I don't mean large... I mean HUGE. We easily could have split it and had leftovers. So A+ on the size. Still not worth 17 bucks, but I have definitely never seen a salad that big. And I commend the effort towards value. My salad was not horrible... it was pretty good. The mushrooms were not fresh, however. I say this as a person who is not that picky about his vegetables. But the mushrooms were pretty bad. The carrots were also not cut very thin. I ended up picking them up with my hands, dipping them in the dressing and eating them that way. Like you would from a veggie tray. The chicken was good. I could tell it was the same chicken tender my kids received. Also a good thing about the salads is that they used romaine lettuce. Not just iceberg lettuce, which is cheap and lacks nutrients. My wife was not impressed at all with her salad. Mostly because of the freshness issue. She said there was brown lettuce and, again, the mushrooms were way past fresh. She totally regretted giving this place another shot. The kids enjoyed their chicken, but the fries were way over cooked. In fact, it reminded of one of my issues the first time we were there. The fries were overdone on that visit, too. They looked like they had been cooked in old frying oil. Ya know when they get dark? There seemed to be no potato left inside the fry. My 6 year old son, who loves fries, only had a couple. Also, the plate came with only 2 chicken tenders. For the price (7.50, I believe), I would have liked to see 3. You could probably look past some of these issues if the food wasn't so darn expensive. It's not worth the money you pay... or even for the chance to eat in an old train. It's classic dinner food, but worse. After reading the reviews on Yelp, one thing that concerns me is that the owner seems to comment on every bad review (which by itself is reassuring). But after reading the reviews, it's like listening to a broken record. "This is not the norm for us, I will talk to our staff". (I'm paraphrasing) Well, it seems obvious that "talking to your staff" is not working. Either that, or you're actually not talking to your staff. But that's hard for me to believe since you are taking the time to comment on reviews. I think most of use appreciate your show of concern, but you only have 2.5 stars on Yelp... you cannot say "This is not the norm of us" when clearly, it seems like it is (based on reviews). If you really care, IMO, you have to find out what the problem is, and fix it. Lastly, it would be wrong of me to not mention that the staff at the restaurant was great. We were seated right away, our food came out quickly (the place was pretty empty), and the waitresses were very nice and attentive. This place has so much potential... I hope they can turn it around. Although, we will probably never go back to find out. read more

Bad quality food. The worst place I have ever eaten at. They definitely take advantage of you here with how high the prices are.. Try it for yourself, and you will most likely agree with me. read more

This was a very cool place to eat - for obvious reasons - it's an old train(s) converted into a restaurant and lounge. They had a lot of choices on the menu, but I always ask the server what they recommend, we were told the BBQ was their best and the Stew was another good option with some of the smoked meat in it. Well, I ordered the pork sandwich (which I should have asked for the coleslaw on the side) because it barely had any meat on it. It was swimming in BBQ sauce with very little pork. I was disappointed to say the least. The table next to me ordered the same thing but with slaw on the side - noticeable difference. The "cheeseburgers" were tiny. For $14 you'd think you'd get a bigger patty than 1/5. It was really sad. My mother loved her Hobo Stew, so that was a plus. I really wanted to try the homemade cobbler but after being disappointed with the recommended choices, I had to pass. However, I would stop in again just for the novelty of it (but probably only to grab a beer or another beverage). read more

We stopped here on our way home from hiking up at Mt Rainier. I was starving and craving some BBQ pulled pork. I was happily when I saw it on the menu. I ordered this... And was disappointed. I didn't even eat more than a couple bites. It tasted bland. The meat was dry and lacked flavor. The bun was super crispy. Just was not impressed. I did enjoy the home made fries. My brother in law ordered the Wings and he was very impressed. Maybe next time I'll try those. The waitress was attentive and super helpful. She was always checking to see if we needed refills etc. great staff. The layout is super cute and cozy. A nice place after working hard out in the cold. The place is a bit pricey... And I just wasn't overly impressed by the quality of the food. read more

About the worst food you can possibly consume. Came to the restaurant as we were waiting to get on the train for the polar express event on Monday 12/30/2019. Moreover, the next morning I woke up extremely intoxicated from the burger I ate at the place. Avoid at all costs! This place shouldn't be allowed to serve customers read more

I really enjoy the Ambience in the theme of the railroad diner. The Service was really good and enjoy talking to lady who work there before leaving. My fav was the French fries. It was really fun eating in a old train car. read more

Very very pricey for frozen food heated up. Staff was loud and ignored us. Also freezing inside. You would think they would buy a good heater with how much they charge people. Definitely do not recommend. read more

We went here when we were on our way to Mount Rainier. The place is really cool because the place was in a train container. I got the hobo hash. It was a lot of food. I thought the food was okay. The food portions were huge though. I couldn't finish it. It did give me the right amount of energy for the hike. read more

I don't know how to give negative rating here else would have done that. Such bad food and worst service ever. First of all no one at the reception, after significant waiting for someone to turn up we ended up going inside to find one of the most rude waitress who didn't even want to explain the menu. Had double the regular salt in French onion soup, a fly in the kids food absolutely zero taste in the rest of the food. The most irritating part was the rude behavior of both the waitress and serving lady. Never ever go to this place. read more

This place has frozen, canned then reheated food! Im guessing of course because of how horrible it was. My 18 year old boy who only cooks microwave pizza pockets could have done better. I'm sorry but I'm pissed off, because of how much they charge for a plate of garbage. For two I spent 50 bucks and that was only two sodas, two meals and no apps or deserts. I tipped 15 percent because our server was very nice. Sweet girl who has nothing to do with the food. We stopped of course because I'm sure like everyone else does, it's in a rail car. How fun right? NO keep going, don't be fooled by the novelty of it like I was. I would have been happier going to McDonald's. I hope to god that the owner realizes soon how they are ripping off the public by serving crud food and makes some changes. Until then, here's to hoping the train leaves the station. read more

We were so excited at the thought of dining on a rail car, big disappointment. We were seated in the "lounge" which is their bar area. No railroad motif or decorations. Our waitress greeted us but didn't take our drink or meal orders for a while. And then the wait for the food! We waited for 45 minutes (with a neighboring table getting the wrong meals) and decided we would go somewhere else. On our way out the door, the waitress walked by with a tray and said, "oh are you leaving? I have you're food." We ordered a burger with fries and a Monte Cristo, her tray had two burgers with salads... read more

Cute concept but the food was awful! They can't even make simple fries taste good. Waste of time and money. Go next door to the pizza place instead. read more

This restaurant was absolutely awful. If I could give it zero stars, I would. My family and I ate here Friday, 11/23/12. It was a group of 12 and we called ahead to let the restaurant know that we would be coming. We had no idea if the place was good or bad going into the dinner, because we were staying in a cabin a few miles away in an area none of us were familiar with. As we walked in, all of us noticed that the place was freezing. It had to have been about 60 degrees in there. We all ordered promptly, and the check was split 6 and 6. When the soda was brought, it was awful. Lukewarm and extremely flat. We said nothing, and waited for our food. When our food came, most of it was cold. Most of us ordered burgers, and all of them were dry and overcooked. My uncle even made the comment that it was the worst burger he had ever eaten. Out of 12 of us, only a couple of the meals came out warm. And I haven't even mentioned the fries. I could write a paragraph on how bad these fries were. If I can, I'm going to post a picture. These fries were black, soggy, cold, hollow, and tasted like they had been sitting around for about two days. I have never tasted worse fries in my life. At this point, we were ready to get up and walk out. My aunt was planning on asking the waitress for a fresh order of fries, but by the time the waitress came to check on us, everyone was done eating. So instead, she let the waitress know how poor the fries had been. The waitress said she would take a couple of the drinks off the check to compensate for the bad fries. Although really, that wasn't much help since the soda was awful too. We waited forever for the check and when we finally got it, we left a meager tip and hightailed it out of there. I would not recommend this place to anyone. A sign they had on the window said it perfectly, "Hot beer, bad food, bad service." You'd be much better off pulling through McDonald's. read more

Mount Rainier Railroad Dining - The cold, cardboard fries they served us at the restaurant. - American Near Me - Elbe, Washington