Railroad Cafe Lounge — Restaurant in Mitchell

On Friday, February 8th, 2025 My friends and I arrived at 6:15pm and we all ordered quick and easy food as we had a concert to attend at 7:00pm around the corner from the restaurant. We told them that we had the concert. They took forever to get our drinks one of my friends grabbed us menus and silverware. The waitress never came back until she delivered my friend's sandwiches. We all ordered quick and easy. Philly cheesesteak, BLT, Ham sandwich and then I got a side salad and a baked potato. When she delivered my friend's food, I still had not received my salad so the waitress told me that they had to chop the lettuce. I told her not to worry about bringing the salad as I wouldn't have time to eat it. I explained I was a stroke survivor and I had to eat slowly which is why I ordered what I thought would have been quickly prepared. My friend and I both ordered sweetened tea and we were brought unsweetened tea and there was no sweetener on the table. The other ladies ordered water. I only drank a few sips of the tea. I sat there the whole time while my friends ate their entire meals. We had to go in order to make the show, so we all got up to leave and pay. Just as we got up to leave, she delivered the baked potato. I told her that I didn't want it. She offered to bring me a box. I told her no I didn't want a box, the whole point of going there was to eat. I told her that I wasn't paying for my tea either because she gave me unsweetened tea and I never got my water. The waitress did not apologize in fact she arrogantly verbally attacked me and kept asking my name. I asked her why she needed my name? She kept asking me, I said what are you going to do call the police on me for not being served? She literally expected me to pay for food I didn't get and the unsweetened tea that I literally took a few sips from. I wish I would have taken a picture for proof! She kept verbally attacking me as we were trying to leave. I told her, omg seriously, go ahead and call the police, I'll tell them I didn't get any food. I said if you are going to call the police on me, maybe I should throw the tea on you so you would have something to call the police on and we walked out the door. She yelled, I saw you take that sip of tea! You need to pay for that! All 6 of us were mortified! The theater was literally around the corner and as we were walking into the theater a police officer literally stopped us to get our story, making us even later to the show. I couldn't believe she did that. She claimed I dined and dashed. In order to dine and dash, you have to dine! About a half an hour after the show was going, the police officer entered into the building and interrupted the performance to get my driver's license for the police report. I couldn't believe it! Then after the show was over the police officer came back (3 times!!!!) to tell me that they claimed I had an open ticket and if I didn't pay he could write me a citation. Are you seriously kidding me? Several people in the theater tried to pay the $3.00 for the tea because this crazy waitress who was off her rocker literally was trying to make me pay for a messed up tea! I have never in my life been treated this way. I grew up in a small town and my family owned a restaurant for 60 years! I have never in my life been treated with such disrespect! I had checked into the building on Facebook and the owner blocked me. There was no one in that theater happy with what happened because that police officer literally harassed me 3 times and interrupted the show for everyone! I tried to call the restaurant today and it said the voicemail was full. I fully plan on calling local news, the mayor, and the police chief today after church. I am a physically disabled stroke survivor with a walker. I pose no threat to society. I should have never been treated that way by any of the people in Mitchell, Indiana. I will post an update to see if the owner takes accountability for...

After a day of touristing on a Sunday the wife and I decided to have lunch at a local eatery while in Mitchell, IN. A quick Yelp search revealed the Railroad Café & Lounge. It was also about the only local restaurant opened that day so it made the choice pretty easy.

The Railroad Café & Lounge is a "take a seat anywhere you like" kind of place, so we decided to sit in the side dining room. We sat for quite a while before anyone came over to us. By "quite a while" I mean close to 20 minutes. Two other tables that came in after us got service nearly right away. I don't know why we were largely ignored.

The restaurant is Railroad decorated, and nicely so. Train signs, pictures, models, lanterns, and paintings we were place all throughout the dining room. I love trains, especially vintage railroadery, and I LOVED the theming.

Our server finally came to use to see what we wanted. By now we had looked at the menu long enough to know what we wanted, so we ordered everything right up front. I ordered a taco salad and my wife had a salad as well. We didn't order an appetizer, we were ready for food.

But we had to wait again. We had to wait over 15 minutes for our food after waiting nearly 20 minutes to get any service at all. Meanwhile there was one table that came in, ordered, got their food, and left in the amount of time we sat at our table.

The salads finally arrived and were largely portioned. They were good, but not remarkable. The tortilla chips came from a bag and the salsa was clearly from a jar. It was very filling, though, so at least I didn't walk away hungry.

Railroad Café & Lounge is about a local and neighborhood as a restaurant can be. The menu was extensive and it's very nicely themed, but on our visit the service (that is to say, the speed of service) wasn't exactly moving us down the tracks. (get that railroad...

The food was so disgusting that we got up and walked out. We ordered two Rubens... one with fries and one with potato chips. The fries were cold and freezer burned, while the potato chips were hot and stale. The worst part ...we did not get 2 Rubens. The bread was greasy, wet rye bread that wasn't grilled. It was old roast beef, "American" Swiss (whatever that is) and onions. No thousand Island, no corned beef, no real Swiss cheese, no saurkraut. When we asked the waitress if she brought us the wrong order, the waitress kept insisting that the cook made our food correctly, because she went in the back and checked. What?That doesn't even make sense ...what do you mean you went in the back and "checked?" I'm like how, how would you know if the cook made it right, were you back there when she was making it? Obviously she didn't make it right because none of the ingredients that were on these so-called "Reubens" matched what the menu described. A Reuben is not roast beef, onions and American cheese. So then, another older waitress comes over to us and insists that the cook made it correctly because she also "checked." At this point, the whole situation is so absurd .... we're like "what is going on here?" The waitstaff and especially that cook need a lesson in what a RUBEN sandwich is. Also they need to use fresh ingredients. Even if it wasn't a Ruben ... If it still tasted good, we would have eaten it anyway, but it was disgusting, greasy, and "old" tasting meat. For $12 bucks for each sandwich, no way. How they have customers...