I was shocked at how good the food was. We took my daughter here on her birthday for dinner during the week, as we thought it would be more fun for her than a normal restaurant. She had fun, and my wife and I were very pleasantly surprised to be eating great food. No offense to this place, but I think most parents will agree that when you go somewhere "kid-centric" you don't have high culinary expectations. Homemade fries and chips, and a pot roast sandwich on a pretzel roll. Great stuff. read more

Its a great place for kids and the adults that come with them. The train, toys and chalk board are entertaining for kids and the burgers and sweet potato fries are very good. read more

We tool my son here for the first time today and it was great! We got there right at 11 when they open because we wanted to sit where the train delivers the food to you and we didn't know how popular this place was. Even though, we got there at 11, it did fill up quickly. I think by 11:30, the counter was full. While we waited for our food, we looked at the train/downtown model which had buttons you could press that could move cars and lights. We played with a car with a steering wheel and a chance for an awesome photo op and ride the train of course (25 cents). There is also a train table and a school bus with a lot of different play stations so it is easy for several children to play independently on it. It was fun to have our food delivered on a train. We split a soft pretzel and cheese which was great. I had a burger and fries, my son had mini burgers and fruit and my husband had a turkey club and fries. The fries were awesome! We also ordered the little one a cupcake since it was a special occasion. All in all, we will absolutely go back there. It is a quick trip from the city and plenty of parking. They also have a Yelp deal that we bought while we were there. $20 for $12. Winning! read more

Brought my son here for his 4th birthday. We took him to All-Aboard diner in Downers Grove last year and while the food isn't great there we enjoyed the experience. We decided on this place cause it's much closer to our house and the menu seemed to be a little more unique. When you first walk in there us no sign to tell you to seat yourself and none of the staff even looked at us. We decided to take a sign at the end of the bar so my son could see the train deliver the food. There was still plates and trash from the prior diner that they just left there. We basically had to tell them to clean it up. We then sat for another 5 minutes and we had to ask for menus. Really? If you want to ignore people just leave the menus on the counter. The food took almost 35 minutes, they said it was the Jucy Lucy I had ordered, wish they would have told me before I ordered. My son stayed occupied with their train sets for about 15 minutes before he got bored, there was not much variety to play with. The food was decent, fries were not seasoned well. Had to ask for utensils and she gave us one set for 3 people. Their customer service skills are horrtheres, the waitress didn't smile at my son once. We felt like we were bothering them for simple requests, like refilling our drinks. Not recommended at all. read more

This place was great for the whole family. Our 2 year old was entertained, and mom and dad could enjoy their food. (bonus: beer and wine is served). My husband had the Juicy Lucy burger and it was delicious. I had a turkey club, which was great as well. But, the whole family was able to enjoy a meal. The servers were super nice and the model train was fun to watch. My son also loved the train table and chalkboard wall to draw on. read more

We had a great time here with the kids. The food was good and the kids could run around and play the whole time. The best part was the food being delivered by a train! read more

My son at age 4 is a train restaurant aficionado. Any Choo choo is good in his book, but I must say that this place just doesn't have what it takes. The restaurant management needs to hire someone that's managed a restaurant before and get some more experienced staff. I went right when it opened, and it was clearly not ready to open yet. We waited a few months and went back, but haven't seen much of an update. The train table is typically only half working. The owner spends most of his time socializing, but will leave you to sit next to dirty dishes for an hour even when you're practically the only person there. The food is promising and the fries are delicious, even though both times I went, something on my order got screwed up. I think they made the right choice by hiring more cooks because the speed of service for food delivery was MUCH better than our first visit. When you go to a train themed restaurant, you really want there to be a lot of trains going on. Thomas on the TV etc, but both times I went, I stared at a screen that had a Comcast message on it and ate in complete silence except for the echo of a large, empty restaurant. It's obvious that the owners mean well, but they need to start getting their hands dirty and be a lot more attentive to the details. read more

Great place to bring your little one. Your little one will be entertained but adults will enjoy as well. You won't have to compromise on the taste, burgers are great! They also have a great selection of beers. read more

We dined here this evening for the first time and had a great experience! Our 16 month old son loved everything about it! We were greeted and seated promptly. The food was great- we had grilled cheese and burgers. My son loved watching the train deliver food. Definitely a must for anyone with kids, especially train lovers! The toys in front were a hit as well. We will be back! read more

We happened upon this diner just trying to get out of the cold and were met with great atmosphere, better food & superb service. The food is brought to you on this little train that runs on a track around the counter, there is a 1960s photo booth that has been restored and a chalkboard wall to while away the time until your food arrives. If you are looking for friendly, helpful staff along with great classic diner food at reasonable prices & a laid back atmosphere, you will find it here. My 14 year old niece and her 16 year old cousin drew some art on the chalkboard wall, hammed it up in the photo booth & enjoyed butterscotch root beer & sarsaparilla until our food arrived. The kids got adventurous will a couple of specials and i stayed classic with a turkey club. Their sandwiches were spot on & my fries were hand cut with the peel on...we all left happier then we were when we went in. Highly recommended, I know we will be back. read more

We had a great experience at lunch today. Staff were a little overwhelmed, but they got the job done. My children had a great time and my spicy chicken salad was delicious! read more

I took my 2 year old son for the first time last week. The food is terrible especially considering the prices- I paid 10.95 for a terribly gritty turkey burger with a side salad that was ALL the white core of a head of iceberg lettuce. I'm pretty confident the chicken nuggets my son had are the Tyson ones I buy at the grocery store. And lastly,but to me most importantly, my son was standing on the platform they have in front of the train display. he was pushing the buttons and somehow slipped, fell and hit his head. Which is fine because toddlers do fall a lot- but the only person who came over to help me was another customer. The employees just glanced over at my screaming, bleeding son (he busted his little lip) and went back to work. Terrible food, Terrible service, will never go back. Very disappointing considering the concept is good! read more

We love this local business! We are quite pleased with the food every time we go here. Service is good and the owner is often there ensuring things are running smoothly. It has a simple no nonsense diner feel, but with what I would consider better food and drinks than many diners offer. Our kids of course love the diner counter and the food train that delivers the food. They have a good selection of food on the menu, and the food has good flavor and seems fresh. There is even a selection of great beer. they also serve limited breakfast items anytime they are open...with good coffee I might add. After our kids finish their meals we let them play in the children's play area in the front of the restaurant (there are some toys and train displays). There is also a chalkboard wall where kids can draw. Despite the kid focus, the clientele is courteous and conscientious of their children, so I've never been annoyed by chaos or bad behavior. This place is a perfect casual lunch or dinner spot in forest park, especially for families with young children. read more

Great place for birthday parties! Brad and his staff did an amazing job. All my guests loved the restaurant and were raving about the food. Can't wait to go back! read more

Terrible service. The people who work here are totally clueless. They forget orders, are slow, and can't handle more than a few customers at a time. Too bad since it's a nice place and is fun for the kids. Don't come here unless you have at least 90 minutes! read more

This place needs a good dusting! Food is plain and you only get like 10 cold fries as your side. Our waitress was not friendly. Will not go back. read more

Amazing place to take the kids for dinner! The owners really thought through the details on what would make the kids happy- there's a train table, model train the kids can operate, a stationary ride on train and a chalkboard wall. All of this in addition to train bringing you dinner. Our 2 and 4 year old had so much fun! And to top it off, the food is great. We went on a Tuesday night, so the service was great. I could see this place being nuts on a Saturday though. read more

I'm hoping we just went there on a off day because reading these reviews have me extremely confused. When we first walked in it took forever to be seated, there was maybe 3 to 4 other smaller families and the staff was kind of just standing around. Once seated the menus were lightly tossed at us. Once they gave my son a coloring page they kind of just slapped it on the table and left it far out of his reach. My husband decided to order the flying yankee sandwich since it was seen on Chicago's best and it was really good! I ordered a burger and it was extremely overcooked and dry. Seemed like it was a frozen patty. Kind of disappointing especially for the price. We ordered the cheese pizza for my son and not only did it come out way after our food, the plate was extremely hot and you could tell it was microwaved. It was one of the worst pizzas I've ever tasted. Even my 2 year old who eats everything didn't touch it. Not to mention the 2 mushy brown grapes that were tossed to the side. My husband also noticed when they poured his apple juice it was from Walmart. It kid of struck me as odd for a place that's made for kids. You would think they would have better quality food for them, Besides the food being ok, the staff was the least bit friendly. Our waitress seemed extremely annoyed and every time we said thank you for something not one you're welcome or anything close to that came out of her mouth. The owner also seemed to have his family come in and once they were there he barely paid attention to anyone else. All in all it was an ok experience. I honestly don't get the hype and for the amount of our final bill we would have been way better off going somewhere else. read more

Great for toddlers and kids that are into trains. I was pleasantly surprised at how good our burgers were. I typically have very low expectations for kid places (chuck e cheese ect.) read more

I loved the sweet potato fries. The regular fries tasted a bit burned with the skins left on them. The best thing about this restaurant is they are extremely kid friendly. Not only do they have toys for the kids to play with, but the staff has a kind attitude toward kids. Some restaurants say they are kid friendly, but then have a negative attitude toward children. The staff here is great! read more

It seems to me that if you are a parent with small children who would rather play than eat, or a parent with slightly older children that you would like to take to a restaurant and promptly ignore in order to socialize with other like minded parents this is the place to be. If you are stopping to grab a bite to eat on your lunch hour you have stumbled into hell on earth. They should make it very clear on their yelp profile that this is more along the lines of Chuck E. Cheese Diner/Train edition on crack, but I guess we also should have had a clue walking in the door. Seriously though, who expects any restaurant to be overrun with screaming kids at noon on a Friday in March? I'm talking screaming toddlers running the length of the restaurant, school aged kids running around doing who knows what. Oh well, I suppose that this is the atmosphere that the owners intended. The real problem with this place is that the service is absolutely horrible. The only person that I actually noticed working was the poor girl behind the counter. When we walked in it took about 5 minutes for her to even notice us, and when she pointed us out to what I can only assume was the owner he let us stand there for another few minutes while he continued a conversation with someone in the restaurant. He finally dropped us off at a table and went back to finish his conversation without telling anyone else we were there. When the overworked girl behind the counter finally realized no one had ever come to take our order it was about 15 minutes after that and she apolized letting us know that no one knew we were sitting there. So we ordered some very easy items 2 hotdogs, and order of cheese fries, and a bowl of chili. The chili came out 1st about 25 minutes after we ordered and then the hotdogs about 5 minutes after that. Had we ordered anything else, a chicken sandwich, a burger even I could see waiting a bit, but you cannot tell me that the chili was not already prepared and waiting to be served or that the hotdogs were not sitting in a steamer. Not to mention most of the other people in the place had already been served so it wasn't like the kitchen was backed up. Unfortunately we were on our lunch break and we had already wasted a considerable amount of time giving this place the benefit of the doubt thinking our food should be right out any minute so it was either wait it out or go back to work hungry. We ended up taking our food to go and for a hotdog that took half an hour to prepare it should have been the best hotdog I've ever eaten. It was barely mediocre. I will never be back and I have already started warning my coworkers and friends in the area against this place. read more

Good place for kids, so-so for adults (which is to be expected for a train diner). My 8 and 3 year old really enjoyed The Junction Diner. It's a bit awkward of a space, it's huge and underutilized in terms of set up. The nice thing is that they have tall highchairs that go over the bar stools for kids to sit at the counter. The stools are set so far apart though, that it's hard to have a conversation with the someone. The food was average, burgers, hot dogs and fries. I thought a bit pricey for the kids menu. I like that they have play areas for the kids while they are waiting for the food. The wait staff was friendly, and this might sound odd, but a bit overly friendly for my taste. I like friendliness, but I don't like the staff awkwardly hanging around constantly trying to chit-chat and make conversation. Leave me be, check in, be friendly and then leave me alone! :) We would go back, for some kind of fun "special" dinner for my kids because it's a treat for them, but wouldn't frequent for an average dinner. read more

Nice idea for the kids. I would have loved this in the seventies. A nice alternative to Chucky's and possibly catching a disease in the ball crawl and so forth. Mr. Roger's would have loved this place. read more

We went there yesterday with a Groupon and our three kids. Service and food were great. We bought a token for the photo booth. Great picture from it. Kids loved seeing the food come to us on the train at the counter. Owner very friendly and helpful. The little downtown looked really good. Will go back when the weather is nice and we can check out all the little shops. read more

We came here since our 2 year old is in love with trains. He enjoyed the play area in the front of the restaurant. Upon ordering, I accidentally made a mistake and ordered my boyfriend the veggie wrap instead of the burger. The younger waitress kindly said it wouldnt be a problem but the older woman (owner perhaps?) was very unhappy and hesitant to change the order as the wrap already had been made. When the veggie burger was ready, she plopped in on the table along with the soup that my was my son's order. SO, the whole put the food on the train and deliver to us never happened...which was the reason we came here.. so our son could have his meal delivered to him on the train.. AND... I ordered the juicy lucy burger and was given a regular burger instead. Terrible experience due to the woman slapping our food on the counter rather than delivering in on the train like every other customer. Wouldnt go back. read more

Not sure how we missed this gem but The Junction in Forest Park is awesome! Upon entering I thought it would serve the purpose of keeping my kids entertained (which it does) but I wasn't really expecting the food to match. Boy, was I wrong! Let me get to aesthetics first. It's a really cute concept focused on trains that the kids love. They have a wrap around counter that brings your food out in plastic trays on an actual train! As a mom of young kids, being able to enjoy a meal is hard to come by so having the toy trains are a great distraction so that parents can actually enjoy their meals. That takes me to the food. My first time here I had the The Juicy Lucy which is a stuffed burger with giardinerra and chihuahua cheese. Can you say yummy?!? YES! It was so good and cooked perfectly. It's a generous size burger that can fill you up or you can have it for later. I usually get mine with the sweet potato fries which are delicious. The next time I decided to try something new so I got the spicy pasta with vegetables in a cream sauce. Bam, that was really good too. In fact, it rivals many of the Italian restaurants in the area that specialize in pasta. I've also had the taco basket which again was pretty good. They also have great service too. The servers are friendly and personable which add to a great dining experience. Go to The Junction for the fun but stay for the food! You won't be disappointed. read more

We took our grandson there today at 12:45 for lunch, and it was really crowded. We had to wait 15 minutes for stools at the counter to open up, but there are a lot of toys to play with, so waiting was not hard to do. They have a train layout with buttons to make things work, a train ride for 25 cents, a toy car table, and other things. A wall is a huge blackboard which the kids may scribble on. There is a photo booth at the back, too. When we got seated, the food was delivered on a train that runs on a track all the way around the counter. Our hamburgers were delicious, and the sodas and beers were great. You could get juice or milk for the kids, too. And they give the kids crayons and a picture to color while they are waiting for their food. The bathroom had a changing table, and a step stool so kids can wash their hands. Very kid friendly place. It emptied out a bunch by 2, so that would be a good time to go have a late lunch. This is a really fun place to take little kids, although there were older ones that were having fun too. And more than a few adults loved the train layout with the tiny people and accessories. read more

Came to this restaurant today for a birthday party and I have no idea what happened in the kitchen of this place. When we got there the kids orders went right in because we had told the mom what we'd order prior to arriving and their food orders came out in a reasonable amount of time. Then she gave the adults menus and we placed our order a little later. An hour and a half later, this is not an exaggeration, we still did not have any food. We placed our order at 12:15 and left at 1:45, canceling our order on the way out. We were not the only ones either. We overheard another family saying they had been waiting an hour and were done and to cancel their order as well. Luckily for us we were at a party and the kids had friends to play with and we had adults to talk to. Also luckily for us our kids didn't finish their plates so we had some left over fries to tide us over. I have no idea how this could possibly happened. The worst part was that the owner was present and never once came to apologize or explain what was going on. He never even glanced at us. Our server came to tell us she was sorry and our food should be coming out a number of times but never offered any explanation. I really think this was unprofessional of the owner though. Take some responsibility and face your customers when something is wrong. Don't make your employees cover you. The lack of integrity in this situation is just as aggravating as the fact that we never got our food. The space is nice and not as cramped as the other diner in Downer's Grove, although I wish the trains and stuff were in the back of the restaurant and not right next to the front door. It would give a little more piece of mind knowing that a child couldn't get outside easily. Also, the cold french fries we got to eat were good. I imagine they probably have pretty good food, unfortunately we never got to find out. read more