The Caboose - Mundelein

I haven't heard too much about this place, but does anyone have any good tidbits or reviews about this place in Mundelein?

All I found online is: http://dailyherald.com/story/?id=236745

All I heard that this establishment serves great food, but the prices are a little expensive.

Thanks in advance!



Caboose
(847) 388-3530
320 E Hawley St

Seeing that The Caboose is in my neck of the woods, I'll fire in.

The owners have done a really nice job opening this place in a tough economy. It is literally a few feet from the freight train tracks, but....that's OK. From the big picture window, one can sit, eat breakfast & watch the trains go by. I've done it & the place does not shake, rattle & roll at all. Kinda cool, actually.

It's more a made-to-order cafeteria, though. You walk in, place your order from the huge chalkboard, grab a cup of Seattle's Best joe from the pressure container, and the waitress brings the order out.

To the food. Really pretty nice & good. The Caboose specializes in eggs benedict, and has at least 12 varieties--florentine, chorizo, gyros, etc., and most of them work pretty well, even if you think they wouldn't. The requisite Hollandaise is freshly made and definitely saves some of the weird combos. This is served with some very tasty baked/fried diced potatoes flecked with green pepper & onion. They also do omelettes and before I forget, The Caboose has an extensive sandwich-based lunch menu. My neighbor swears by the quality of the Philly cheese steak.

Pricey? Not really, $6-8 for breakfast, sandwiches a little less. The place has an airy vibe that harkens back to old North Side coffeehouses like No Exit, the kind of establishment you hope can make it through the hard times. Definitely worth the trip.

I appreciate the comments.

Thanks -- I'll head over there this weekend for a bite.

sounds pretty good. since my kid is a train fanatic, i'll file this one away for sometime when we feel like taking a drive. thanks for the heads-up.

Everything about it, including the location, suggests that its goal is to catch the early morning train crowd. I drive by it all the time and have not yet been motivated to check it out -- probably because I'm into neither early mornings nor breakfast foods. But if I see a chance I'll check it out and post back.

I think the location is the location, and the name stemmed from that. The owners totally gutted the structure & used a lot of care in rehabbing it to give a sparse, funky (for Mundelein standards anyway!) look. And they occasionally play Grateful Dead music, which is always a plus for me!

And, The Caboose is not really within walking distance of the train, at least a half-mile as the crow flies. I just think (borne out by the Herald article) that they saw an opportunity with the building, saw that there wasn't really much good competition in town, and went for it.

sailordragonball wrote:I haven't heard too much about this place, but does anyone have any good tidbits or reviews about this place in Mundelein?

All I found online is: http://dailyherald.com/story/?id=236745

All I heard that this establishment serves great food, but the prices are a little expensive.

Thanks in advance!



Caboose
(847) 388-3530
320 E Hawley St

A couple of comments here - http://www.yelp.com/biz/caboose-mundelein

jnm123 wrote:And, The Caboose is not really within walking distance of the train, at least a half-mile as the crow flies.

You say that as though a, half a mile is not walking distance, and b, there is anywhere else to get a cup of coffee or something to eat in the morning between The Caboose and the Mundelein Metra station. Oh wait - there's Dunkin Donuts.

If The Caboose were right at the station, it would be a gold mine--that's how good the food is.

The good news is I was just there for lunch & it was packed, so maybe they will survive.

I tried this place on Saturday. They had a decent crowd. I had an omelet, potato crisps, and a half order of biscuits & gravy. The biscuits & gravy were below average.

My omelet was a veggie with smoked gouda. I thought this was excellent. I have never had smoked gouda in an omelet and it worked well. The potato crisps were silver dollar size pieces of potato, they were definitely crisp. I am not sure I would get them again. They seemed to be designed for kids.

I will definitely go back, their lunch menu looked interesting.

Oh, as to being a half mile from the metra station, I agree that is not a long distance. But there doesn’t appear to be a convenient foot path between the two.

D.

we tried it yesterday and were underwhelmed.

i had one of the eggs benedicts which came with the aforementioned hash brown disks. they seem to be straight out of the freezer, as were (i believe) the mozzarella sticks and onion rings that we tried. the hollandaise on my benedict was strangely smooth and homogenous, to the point that i believe it probably came out of a bag or from some sort of a mix containing emulsifiers and stabilizers.

this is just speculation on my part, but when places have such huge menus, i know it's pretty hard to do everything from scratch. i'd rather see less variety and more quality.

my wife had a wrap, which looked fine, but didn't include fries in the $7.00 or so price. overall, the prices seemed pretty high for the quality of food and self-serve casual setting.

elakin wrote: the hollandaise on my benedict was strangely smooth and homogenous, to the point that i believe it probably came out of a bag or from some sort of a mix containing emulsifiers and stabilizers.

Isn't Hollandaise supposed to be smooth? I've actually watched someone make it and have it turn out smooth and flawless. I've had Hollandaise made by Grant Achatz (back in his Trio days) that was incredibly smooth and homogenous. Which doesn't mean you're wrong about the stuff at the Caboose coming out of the bag, I'm just not sure how its being smooth would lead you to that conclusion.

sure...you're right. this was smooth to the point that it resembled nacho pump cheese. i'm not sure how to describe it more effectively, but i've worked in places where we made hollandaise every day for years and i've never seen hollandaise that looked like this.

it just didn't seem right.

as i said, i'm only going by my own intuition. i might be wrong...maybe they made it the traditional way.

well, yes. i have not only heard, i like going there also...it is one of tthe restaurant with a private dining room...and that is what i like the most

dodger wrote:Oh, as to being a half mile from the metra station, I agree that is not a long distance. But there doesn’t appear to be a convenient foot path between the two.

You can't afford to think of a mile or two as a nonwalkable distance if you live in most of Mundelein and wish that it was a convenient walk to the train station. I live on the east side of the tracks. There is no direct route. I don't mind a long walk; I mind the lack of sidewalks, the isolation of subdivisions, the shortage of points for crossing from east to west ... grrrrrrr! Don't get me started on how much less walkable Mundelein is than it could be.

Nonetheless, having driven by to check a few times since my last post, it seems to me that there is a concrete sidewalk running right along the railroad track, across the tracks from the location of the Caboose to the Metra train station. The station, or at least a trackside rain shelter thereof, is visible from Hawley, and seems to be no more than a long block's walk away. There is a chain link fence separating the sidewalk from the tracks. Measuring on Microsoft Streets & Trips indicates it is a quarter mile from The Caboose to the train station.

elakin wrote:sure...you're right. this was smooth to the point that it resembled nacho pump cheese. i'm not sure how to describe it more effectively, but i've worked in places where we made hollandaise every day for years and i've never seen hollandaise that looked like this.

it just didn't seem right.

as i said, i'm only going by my own intuition. i might be wrong...maybe they made it the traditional way.

And you're probably not wrong -- as I said originally, my wondering didn't mean you were wrong. I just wondered about "smooth" being an issue. "Smooth" didn't set off alarms for me. "It just didn't seem right" and "I've never seen hollandaise that looked like this" do set off alarms. Thanks for the clarification.

I've had enough really awfully, pasty, flavorless hollandaise to know that much can go wrong. And as much as I love hollandaise -- I could eat it straight -- there are few things more disappointing than anticipating it and then having it be unpalatable.

I will say that I'm really disappointed that the hollandaise isn't good. I was really psyched to try this place. Eggs Benedict is one of my favorite dishes. Sigh. Though perhaps I'll still try it for the omelets, as they got a thumbs up earlier in the thread. It's certainly an attractive place, so perhaps still worth trying. I'm just sorry about the hollandaise.

i will say that the eggs on my benedict were cooked nicely.