Anything in Union, Illinois and environs?

In August I will be taking the first-born to the "Thomas the Train" tour at the Illinois Railway Museum in Union, Illinois. Thomas is a god-like figure among young Liam's peer group, and I anticipate an enjoyable, if exhausting, morning.

I also anticipate that I will not want to eat at the museum itself. Left to my own devices, I am confident I could find a tavern or roadhouse that serves good food. However, I need something a little more child friendly. Generally, I'm not opposed to bringing my boy to a bar that serves food--but on this day I anticipate a combination of hunger and excitement which will require an establishment that caters to children as a matter of course. Not necessarily a kid's restaurant (if there is such a thing), but a family-friendly place that serves good food.

Any ideas? Thanks in advance.

I'm not sure of the exact geography of that part of the world, but jlawrence has talked about Around the Clock for coffee shop/pie type service in Crystal Lake, if that is close enough to where you are going to be. Here's a link to a previous postwhich includes their website.

Donley's Wildwest is in Union and as well as the cheesy wildwest show, they have a pretty decent steakhouse/family dining attactehed. Haven't been since the nephew outgrew this sort of thing but it was mildly entertaining. Around the Clock is in Crystal Lake on Rte. 14, my dad and his other 80 yr old buddies liked to hang out here daily so I have never thought much of it. Down the street on 14 is the Village Squire, good for burgers and more.

http://www.wildwesttown.com/

There is a great hidden gem in Union IL. I was told about this place from a Union local. He told me they (Farmers) try to keep it to themselves because they don't want to have to wait for a table or make reservations if the tourist found out about this place.( Check Please) But now I see they have a web site , so I guess it's not a secret any more. The place is called Checkers 2 Restaurant, it's in town which consists of a VFW Hall, a bar , small grocery store, and a police station. what else do you need. I love this place! I think they have the best broasted chicken dinner, very crispy, juicy and large pieces, baked potato , cole slaw and a salad is $1.00 extra . My friend always has the steak sandwich and the burgers are huge. There is also a kids menu. This is an old house that they transformed in a restaurant. The back yard has a few picnic tables and the gazebo is a bar. The people who work their are so nice . You can't go wrong with the chicken dinner, that's all I ever have when I go there, which is 3 to 5 times a year. If you decide to go to Checkers try to make it over to Around The Clock for some of the best home made pies. The apple is the best I have ever had and I'm not a fruit pie eater. Have Fun . Oh and don't speed in that area.

Checkers ll Restaurant
http://www.checkersrestaurant.com
6524 Main Street
Union, IL 60180
(815) 923-2000

Union is kind of "out in the boondocks" even for those of us out here in McHenry Co.

First, I know of a few places in Union but most are conencted to bars and are NOT kids places. Donley's is an idea but not a fair one. They do have a steakhouse that serves decent food, but ... would you take your kid TO the Wild West without being roped into going into the cheesy attraction. It would be like taking your kid to Disney World ... for dinner.

As for Crystal Lake, I do eat at Round the Clock (Rt 14 and Pingree) and I can assure you thjat the overwhelming majority of their customers are not 80+ and they have pretty good food and pies. What I like about them over their competition is that they serve DIFFERENT and creative dishes in addition to the favorites.

I do not eat at Village Squire (Rt 14) as the food is not as good, the service is not attentive and it is about $2-3 pp more. There food is decent but they aspire to the ordinary.

I avoid the Crystal Palace as the food and service has been bad. At Andy's the food is decent but boring and the service takes forever.

Walker's Pancake House serves good food. It is a bit pricy but it is a place that kids generally love.

Across from the Crystal Lake train station is Georgio's which serves some pretty good pizza.

I have no recommendations in either Hundley or in Marengo. There are a couple places with promise but none that I can heartily recommend at this point in time.

I am assuming that you are coming from the city and wish to stay south of Union. I have a few more remote ideas if you are interested.

Up in Hebron, IL, at the traffic light, there is a place with an old soda fountain that serves breakfast and lunch only. It is across from the dairy whip. They do pretty good ice cream. On the other corner is a pizza place that serves pretty good pizza.

About 0.5 miles north is Crandall's which serves great broasted chicken at a very reasonable price.

Also in the vacinity, is a large apple orchard that has a nice play area for the children and is worth a visit. I believe that it is Royal Oak - Cathy2 wrote a post about it recently (hanging with all the over 80+ crowd seems to be affecting my memory (g)).

I agree with Kim, Checker's is a pretty good place if you get there before 4 pm or so when they fill up for dinner. Also, if they are serving food that day, the old guys running the Union VFW serve up some wicked food.

OP - if you have any questions, let em rip. I am on a road trip to the Rio Grande Valley starting tomorrow .....

Thanks for all the posts. Round the Clock and Checkers sound promising. I'm very tempted by the pie at the former, but am leaning toward the latter for the convenience factor (I presume it is closer to the museum.)

That being said, I am interested in other suggestions, so if JLawrence1 or any else has any more, keep 'em coming. Even if they are more remote, it never hurts to add them to the database for future reference.

Thanks again.

jlawrence01,
Tell me about this wicked food at the VFW ! I remember a sign saying that their's a fish fry and somthing about a lobster dinner. Fill me in. Thanks Kim.

After I ate out at Checkers per your recommendation, I noticed that there was a real crowd by the VFW. I believe that it was a Lenten Friday and they were having a fish fry. I went in to check out the food and they had a pretty good spread out that night of the usual fish fry food. However, as I barely waddled through the Checker's chicken, I could not entertain another meal so soon.

The VFW and the Mexican joint at US20 and IL23 are both on my list of restaurants to try when I get some time to get over there. My problem is that I have spent nearly every weekend April-June on the road.

OP- what I gave you was about all in the "family restaurants" that I would recommend in Crystal Lake.

Other more upscale recommendations would include:

1776 - inventive chef, the best place in CL.
Genovese's - DT Crystal Lake next to Starbuck's.

Others would include:

Siri Thai III - good Thai food.
Tacos del Norte - Algonquin east of Randall Rd.
Little John's Sandwich Shop at IL-31 and IL-176
Crystal Lake Rib House at IL-176 and Pingree


Kim - there is a new restairant/shop across from the Raue Theatre in Crystal Lake. I have not had the time to stop there yet. It replaced a completely forgetable family bakery.

BTW, Joseph's Supermarket has a limited selection of home-cooked entrees preapred in house from sratch. The selection is pretty limited but the chow has been very good. (Cut down on my trips to RTC).

After a few months, I finally made it out to the Union, IL VFW post for their Friday Night Fish Fry/Steak/Lobster Dinner.

The food was decent but nothing special. I ordered the "Steamed Cod" which was a 12oz stick of codfish served with a baked potato and a salad bar (which had seen better days). The food was nothing special and rather disappointing as it was 8-10 miles out of the way.

I will head out to Merango in the coming weeks and see what is out there.

HI,

I was in Hebron, IL today. The Dairy Whip soft serve custard stand is closed due to arson. They hope to reopen soon.

Regards,

Not only has the Dairy Whip reopened, but the soda fountain has been remodeled and reopened as Kaitie's Restaurant. The restaurant is open for all three meals (as opposed to the irregular hours it had been open).

The food is decent but nothing great. The menu is fairly boring and most of the menu items look like they come from Sysco. However, all of the pies and cobblers are made from scratch and are excellent. The fountain products are excellent and are very large.

It is not a place that I would run miles out of my way to eat at, but the food is better (and less expensive) than much of what you'll find at a similar price in Lake Geneva.