The Junction Diner

Amazing time. If you have kids and are looking for a kid friendly place with great food (and alcohol) this is it. A train brings your food to the table and the kids will love it. Had a great time.
Bacon Burger– great! Big!
Homemade donuts with dipping sauce– great!
Take your family.

Great place! Very friendly and attentive staff. The food is very fairly priced and they have generous portions.
The kids loved the experience.

Crazy place — let me tell you. Great concept but it’s not working. That place feels to empty and disorganized. We went there after brookfield zoo trip total of 6 heads. Waitresses are kind of mean and they don’t care. Food wait time was long app 35 min for burger with only 2 more people there with 2 cooks. Cooks are not trained right based on my observation– he was handing meat then some block of chesse, then he grabbed for some tomato and lettuce to the cooler without washing hands between or gloves or anything. Then he let that chesse sit on the cutting board for good 30 min. Floor and counter was not cleaned since morning I guess cause I saw some pancakes by the chairs. Wont be back there for sure. No one got sick but still you see thing like that and something turns on in your brain.

Very busy on Friday nights between 5−7pm when it becomes overloaded with children and their families. Very nice play area for children to play while the food is being prepared. I had a Burlington bacon burger with fries and my son had the kiddie pancakes with a side of fruit. My only criticism is the pancakes had a slight weird taste to them. I’m not quite sure why or what it was but I didn’t let me son finish eating them because of that factor. The waiter stays very busy so very little time to get refills of water or juice and also I didn’t want to hassle him with the weird taste of the pancakes. We’ve came to the diner since they first opened and not much has changed with service and their love for what they do. Overall, great place.

Oh my goodness .that was a great mushroom burger I originally bought the groupon for the granny men but the lazy daughter was gonna let it expire, so me and my hubby carried out and I have no complaints

Really great place for kids. Very family friendly, and amazingly attentive service.
Impressed by the wide variety of food options— from soup, to gluten free breads, and cane sugar sodas (and wine and beer!).
Kids enjoy the toys and playing w/​eachother.
Tip from me: leave purse in car so you can easily go from stools at the bar, to watching kids in the toy area. Also, food is on the greasier side, so order light.

Nice little place to take kids for a fun lunch. Food gets hauled out to you via choo choo train which is cool and kids love it. Burgers and fresh cut fries are yummy. Good food and free entertainment for kids, sounds good to me!

This was a fun experience. The restaurant is very family friendly and interesting to partake in the dining experience. This is a good meet up spot to talk with your friends, while having children playing in a closed safe environment, while you eat. Who could ask for anything more. The prices were not bad and the food was yummy. The train comes out and brings you your food, staff is friendly, just never touch the moving train while its bringing out food, children are very prone to touching it.

Great place to take the kids. Good food at reasonable prices. Friendly, attentive staff. I’ve been there numerous times and never had a bad experience. Lunch with children highly recommended.

Great place to bring kids, that’s pretty much why we frequent this spot. Added bonus is the food is actually really good and they have a decent beer list for adults. Super friendly service; we love this place. It’s very close to a local ice cream joint — we usually hit up both and make a family date night out of it.

I am a HUGE fan of this place for multiple reasons:
— The food is delicious
— The owners and staff are friendly, knowledgeable and incredibly service-​oriented (my photobooth photo came out jenky and they owner bought me a new one without me even saying anything)
–The food is affordability priced and there is a good variety of options
— TRAINS!
–They serve beer and wine
So this is a fantastic place to bring the kids — or yourself. For it being a kid restaurant, it’s very classy. The décor is nice, the restaurant is open and airy, and it’s surprisingly quiet, even when filled with playing children. They have free wifi and serve a variety of wines and beers, so I could probably hang out there all day and eat their delicious sweet potato fries. They have stuff for the kids to do (a coin-​operated train, train table, etc) and both «kid» and «adult» food options, that, if you sit at the bar, are delivered by train. This, understandably, was my kid’s favorite part. I wish they had something like this where I live!

Came here for my grandson’s birthday. He loved the choo choo train and the photo booth. And the food was good. Great destination for the little ones.

I love this place and agree with the previous positive reviews. My son is happily playing with the trains right now while I sit with a full belly from my spicy chicken pasta. Yum! The staff here rocks!

Great place for kids’ parties! The staff was friendly and helpful, and made sure the birthday girl had everything she wanted. Kids had a wonderful time!

I love getting my food brought out to me with the train. I enjoy it more than my 2 year old nephew though. I kept telling him to look at the train. He really didn’t seem to care at all.
Food is pretty good. I’ve had their burgers, wraps and veggie patties when I was fasting from meat. We’ve had most of their deserts. Everything is really good and tasty. We had a one off once, but the owner quickly corrected it for us.
I will continue coming here cause my nephew likes riding the little rocking train/​car in the window and cause I love the sweet potato fries. They also serve funky beers. Check them out.

Came here with my wife and daughter. Really cool place to take kids for lunch. The food is really good. I thought it would be mostly frozen burgers and pizza but they actually take a lot of pride in their menu and ingredients. I had the Reuben which was really good. My wife had the juicy Lucy burger which was also very good. Made fresh stuffed with giardenerra on a super soft pretzel roll. The sweet potato fries were also great.
Of course what the restaurant is known for is all the food is delivered on a model train which circles around the large counter. The kids love it!
Word of advice you will need some quarters for the kids games in front.
The décor is kind of blah. Seems like the room could be beautiful but they cut a lot of corners with the décor. But not bad for a kids place.
Overall I’d definitely recommend coming here. Being the kids and come hungry.

This is now our second trip to a train themed restaurant and in comparison, Junction Diner comes up a little short. The kids had a good time and that was good enough for me but there’s definitely room for improvement.
For starters, there seems to be a lack of trains in the train themed restaurant. There was a cute train set up but only three of the many buttons seemed to be working. There was a train table but only a handful of trains for it. There’s a couple train posters but that’s really it. On the TV was some crappy CW show. The place wasn’t very busy at 6pm on a Saturday night so we only saw the trains go out with food a few times. The space is large but a little cold.
The food was just ok. My husband and I each ordered the Juicy Lucy and there wasn’t really anything juicy about it. It was pretty dry. The fries were good.
The kids orders of mac and cheese were ok. But when I ordered I asked the waitress if we were to skip the fries and drink (because I could tell my kids just weren’t going to eat because they were too busy playing) if the price went from the advertised $ 5.99 to $ 3 for an entrée, as specified on the menu. She said yes… then charged us the $ 5.99 anyways. By the time we got the bill, we were just ready to go and I didn’t want to make a big deal over $ 3 (which is actually $ 6 because we had two meals) but I did specifically ask her and she charged us anyways.
The location is convenient for us because its on our way home from Brookfield Zoo so it could make a nice day with lunch. But it just wasn’t that great. We might be in if my 4 year old begs but for train themed restaurants, its done elsewhere much better.

Such a fun place for the kiddos! My son loves trains and a friend of mine had been telling us how fun this place was. We took my 3 y.o. daughter and 18 month old son and they had a blast. There is a coin operated train that you sit on and my daughter just could not get enough of it. They also have a miniature train station /​town and all the kids get on a step to look in on it. There are buttons that you can press to turn the store lights on. And of course the choo choo train that brings your food the table was a hit.
They also have an old photo booth in the back and you can get a token for 3 bucks. The kids loved that as well.
The food was standard. I had a spicy chicken sandwich with fries and a beer. The kiddos had nuggets and fries. My husband had the corn beef sandwich. The food was tasty, I would come back again.
I was afraid there would be a wait but when we got there it was 5:00 on a Tuesday night (during Christmas vacation) and there was almost no one there but slowly they started coming in and by the time we left the place was packed. WE got lucky with parking but you may have to drive around the block a couple of time.
We will definitely bring the kids back.

This isn’t our first train restaurant rodeo and certainly wont be our last. After an afternoon on the Polar… ahem excuse me, the Santa Express out of River Forest (they can’t use «Polar Express» anymore due to licensure or copyright or whatever blah de blah de blah) The Junction Diner was the perfect place to keep the train theme going. Sunday at about 4pm the place was pretty empty except for a birthday party in their party room. But by 5pm more and more families started coming in.
My 3 yr old son, MIL and I were greeted immediately when we entered and we easily found seats along the counter. Our server was very enthusiastic and made sure we were aware of all the specials, pointed out the kids menu and pointed out the craft soda and beer/​wine options.
Among the train restaurants I’ve visited in Bartlett and Downers Grove, this one has the best menu. It comes pretty close to DG, but JD’s specials menu and craft soda selection sets them apart.
My MIL and I couldn’t decide between two sandwiches so we ordered each and split them. The Pot Roast sandwich and the Reuben (which was on the specials board). I upgraded my fries to sweet potato fries and opted for the Birch Beer Soda. My son ordered the cheese quesadilla. We also split an order of their home made doughnuts for dessert.
The food was excellent. I loved how they served the sauces for the sammies on the side (horseradish for the pot roast and russian for the Reuben). The food came out piping hot and everything was delicious. The pot roast was very tender and the horseradish sauce def added a nice element of flavor. The Reuben was also very good too. Nice helping of corned beef too. The sweet potato fries were excellent, made well and very tasty.
The dessert was wonderful. It’s 5 dounut puffs, sitting on top of some honey, dusted with cinnamon and comes with a chocolate dipping sauce. It really didn’t need the chocolate as it was pretty tasty on its own but who are we kidding, it’s chocolate and it’s always welcome!
The space is nice, seems like an older building as it’s very tall and spacious inside… it could use more train décor the walls. But there are some fun things about the space. The train that delivers your food – but it only runs on the counter so if you’re seated at one of the tables, the train still brings your food, it’s just one of the servers has to deliver it to your table. There’s a train table for tykes to play with. There’s also a mechanical train ride and a stationary train ride. Also a little village of trains and buildings that light up/​move at a push of a button.
Wonderful and friendly service. We’ll be back.

I love everything about the Junction. The staff is friendly, the food is great, the train motif is amazing and they even have an old fashioned photo booth in the back of the restaurant!
My five year old and I try to come once a month and she always leaves with a smile! The prices are very reasonable and I love the this is the type of place where kids are encouraged to get up and be kids! Definitely an A+++in my book.