St. Louis Union Station Soda Fountain — Restaurant in St. Louis

My friends highly recommended this place and were SO excited for me to try it. The best part is the decor and the atmosphere. LOVE the old school diner theme. The shakes were creative and tasted really good. The food was honestly mediocre. There's a very minimal selection. I tried the burger and while it wasn't bad, I can get a better one almost anywhere else. It was dry and didn't have alot of flavor. The fries were good but also bland. My friends agreed that it was nothing like when they came here the first time. The service is what killed it for all us. We waited half an hour for a table (which was fine. It was busy) then once we got our table we sat there for 45 minutes before our waitress Koda even acknowledged us. She brought us waters and then disappeared for 15 minutes before coming to get our order. She took the order. We waited 15 more minutes for 5 sodas and a classic shake. After 30 more minutes we saw her actually ringing in our food. When the food came out it was okay. We had 3 extra baskets of fries, don't know how that happened. After about an hour I ask for a box and a to-go cup which I never got. We told her it was one check (bc we didn't want to make it difficult) but we got 2 that weren't correct. We had to wait another 30 minutes (for her to run around with who I assume is the manager) before we got our still not correct checks. The manager was walking around the whole time we were there. Never stopped and asked us anything. Honestly she just walked around with her nose up in the air and kept tapping on her iPad. Got the feeling she wanted to look inportant vs actuallyworking to help others out. We never saw her so anything, other than walk around with that iPad. She barely acknowledged the staff or the customers. We just paid the checks and then venmoed each other. The most frustrating part is that there was a different waitress at near by tables that turned at least 3 tables while we waited to order. This really ruined my first experience and my friends' 2nd. I wanted to love this place. I was so excited to come here. My friend could not stop telling me about it on our wally to the restaurant he was so excited. After this experience, my friends who wanted me to try this "amazing" place so badly, they don't even want to go back now. We want to give it another shot because we don't want to discount the whole restaurant on what seems like one poor manager and a bad server, but it's gonna be hard to go back.

EDIT: My group was invited back to try again completely on the house and our 2nd time back was MUCH better. Our waitress Amber was amazing. Very attentive and super friendly. Will definitely be asking for her section when we come back. The food was so good, much better than last time! It came out super fast and was cooked perfectly. I am so glad we gave this place a second try. We will definitely be back with all of...

On Dec. 5th of this past year, my daughter & I had the pleasure of riding The Polar Express for the 2nd day in a row during our Mother/daughter Christmas trip. While completely enjoying our time on the train both nights, little did we know that our night on the 5th was just about to be made even better!! After getting off of the train the night of the 5th, we walked around for a little while & since it was so cold outside, we decided to go into The Soda Fountain to warm up & check it out....I can tell you that in doing so, it completely made our night absolutely wonderful!! I say that because we were checking out the menu to see what we could have since we have both unfortunately been dealing with ongoing severe G.I. issues for getting close to 10 years now---my issues stemming from a cancer diagnosis & my daughter's starting with the fact that she is special needs & has autism. After we made our selection, we went up to the counter to place our order. This is where we were truly blessed by the brightest light in our evening & that light belongs to an incredibly sweet, kind & caring employee there named Chelsea H. Not only did she do this establishment proud by being an exemplary employee, but she truly has the sweetest, kindest & most caring heart too!! She treated my daughter & I like we were family even after only knowing us for just a few minutes!! I truly can't say enough about how wonderful she was to us & that says a lot because with my daughter having autism, it takes a really special person for her to be so receptive to someone she's only known for such a short time & Chelsea H is someone that fits that description for sure!!! Not only did we enjoy what we had, but my daughter & I having the pleasure of meeting & spending some time with Chelsea was the cherry on the top of our special treat that night!! We are really looking forward to coming back again this December & having the pleasure of seeing Chelsea H. again!!! My heartfelt thanks again to her & also to whomever made the decision to hire her!! She truly does your establishment proud & does so with a heart of gold!!! 💛💖💛💖 #StLouisUnionStationTheSodaFountain #ChelseaH...

sure, foods fine. but genuinely, you have to work hard to make food so poorly someones gonna write about it. The thing is with this location is the constant buffoonery of the staff they hire. Year in and year out. As a local, whenever something brings us to Union Station, this shop always sticks out like a sore thumb, begging you to come try a tasty treat before or after whatever you're at Union to do…and like a codfish, I return with yet another group intent on trying it…hoping it isn't the same experience. Yet again, zero communication from the hostess, took about 20 minutes for her to just tell us that you order take out from a completely separate area. Step up to the take out bar, where two employees are furiously going through the computer and receipts. We stand there for 15 minutes looking through their options, decided what we want out loud…waiting to be addressed by the staff. Nothing. 25 MINUTES go by and they are still blindly rapping away at their computer and receipts. a line has now built behind us and NOBODY ON STAFF has every acknowledged us with a "it'll just be 1 second" "sorry for your wait we're having some issues" nothing. when asked, is someone going to be able to take our order…they laugh and say oh haha its a shift change, we won't be ready for while, one girl laughing mutters "not until I get all my tips put in"

Absurd to think they're actually inputting "tips" into their system. Whose giving these incommunicable drips anything extra? genuinely? Management needs to teach a life skills and simple verbal communication class to anyone it hires or else this place will continue to be the epitome of poorly waged employees servicing a dead in the water tourist trap.

Just wanted to try a milkshake the past 5 years. Patience isn't the issue. I don't even write reviews. This whole experience conglomerating over so many years has just aggravated me to no end. Muscling these poorly constructed paragraphs didn't make it any better. We've all worked in this industry. We're just flabbergasted a place can have SUCH horrific employees for such longevity and still be open….unbelievable. Rich owners slathering a...