Choo Choo Johnny's
Choo Choo Johnny’s Is a Great Food Ride
Every kid and every adult loves a train. Even if we don’t, most of us who work in the Chicago Loop spend our weekday lives riding on one commuting to and from the job.
So I wasn’t surprised when my toddler went choo choo crazy over a restaurant that has not only built itself around the theme of a train, but has incorporated working model trains into the food service itself.
It’s called Choo Choo Johnny’s and it’s located just south of Orland Park in Frankfort on LaGrange Road. You’ll read a lot from me about Frankfort because it is one of my favorite communities. It has a phenomenal summerfest that is one of the region’s best.
But for now, you can enjoy one of its many great restaurants. If you happen to be a parent with a toddler, you know how hard it is to enjoy any restaurant with the little tyke screaming, yelling and fighting over whether or not he or she wants to eat the food, let alone listen to mom or dad.
ChooChoo Johnny’s will have the kid mesmerized. And the food isn’t bad, either – my “Sout Side Chicaga” slang for “food that is great!”
ChooChoo Johnny’s is a beef and sausage sandwich shop that offers the usual fare (sausage, beef, hot dog, chicken, hamburger, fries and tamales), plus a little bit more including soup, several fish selections and even tacos.
I have one standard for judging these beef sandwich restaurants: what does the tamale taste like?
Even if you don’t like tamales, you can usually judge a beef sandwich shop by the quality of its tamales. (Have someone else eat one for you, if you can’t eat one yourself.)
If the tamales are soft, not crusted and hard from age, are still steaming and wrapped in a waxpaper that easily unwraps, then you have found one great sandwich shop.
If the tamale breaks apart as you struggle to unwrap it, or even resists a cut from a handmade Moki Japanese knife that can slice silk as it floats down in the air, then get up, don’t waste your time eating and go someplace else.
Chances are everything there will be just as bad. If a restaurant can’t take the time to manage its tamales and offer the best, what makes you think they’ll offer quality in anything else?
Choo Choo Johnny’s cut mustard and passed the tamale test with flying colors.
But like I said, even as you enjoy the food, it’s the atmosphere that makes this place spectacular and worth a trip with the kids.
The little restaurant has a large oblong table like an old Woolworth’s counter, except this one seats about 40 or more on both sides with a center area for the waitress. The counter extends out from the kitchen area and for a reason.
When
your food is ready, a large model train with five or six “flat freight
cars” pulls out with a loud train toot, and carries each food selection
right to your seat.The kids (and adults) are mesmerized as they watch the train chug along the long railroad ties in front of the seated customers as it slowly comes to a halt at your position. A waitress unloads the food and the train makes its way around back to the kitchen station.
Another train rides around the walls near the ceiling through the entire restaurant and the kids sit on old Woolworth chairs that are round and turn so they can eat and watch everything.
At the front of the restaurant are two trains and a train village and control buttons that operate the trains and the many electrical models on the set including a Ferris wheel, a carnival rocking boat ride, a carousel, a miniature firehouse and fireman whoslides down the fire pole, and all kinds of lights and gadgets.
I think this was the first meal I ate in comfort with my toddler in more than two years without ever having to sternly tell the ever roaming youngster to “SIT DOWN!”
He ate everything, too. And that’s good because I think I’d be rich on the money that I spent that was wasted on food he’s left at the restaurant table.
The restaurant has a party room and I saw some 25 kids and parents pile out while I was there Friday night. Every kid was smiling from ear to ear. They charge $10 for each child, which includes a children’s menu meal selection, train hat, balloons, ice cream and two hours of “tootin fun.”
It reminded me a lot of a place I used to go to when I was a kid in the early 1960s. It was on 95th Street and they used to serve Hurricane Ice Cream mountains. It looked more like a volcano of ice cream. Snappy. Happy waitresses and staff. And full of fun.
This place is it!
The 411
Choo Choo Johnny’s
667 LaGrange Road
Frankfort, Il., 60423
www.choochoojohnnys.com
Restaurant: 815-806-9005
Party Room Reservations:
(815) 791-2923
Open Sunday-Thursday, 11 to 8 p.m.
Friday and Saturday, 11 to 9 p.m.
Very affordable pricing.