The Side Rail — Restaurant in Wapakoneta

In town for a single night and decided to check out The Side Rail. A railroad themed restaurant? Not a hard sell for us!

The Side Rail is located in downtown Wapakoneta, Ohio. It's about a downtown as one can get, and easy to find.

Inside The Side Rail looks larger than it does from the outside. It's nicely railroad themed with train signage, photos, and memorabilia around the place. Since it was Thursday evening around dinner time, the place was kinda hopping. There were no table available so we sat at the bar.

The menu is sizable and has a lot of really appetizing items and it was, legit, hard to chose. I selected the Jalapeño Popper Grilled Cheese (Texas toast smothered in jalapeno cream cheese spread and bacon, along with cheddar and pepper jack cheeses) with onion rings. They have, on our visit, about 6 different beers on tap, and from what we were told they're ever-changing.

There were a number of screens behind the bar showing sporting events. The bar, itself, was adorned railroad style, of course, with real model railroad track. It was a very cool touch.

Food delivery was less than 10 minutes, and it was served HOT, and the the Jalapeño Popper Grilled Cheese was exactly what I needed/expected. The onion rings were excellent (however, I did ask our server and they're not made/breaded their, but come out of a frozen bag. :( ) Nonetheless, they were fantastic.

Our server (whose name escapes me) was great and answered all of our questions without hesitation. She also kept our iced teas topped off.

The Side Rail is a fun, neighborhood kinda place with awesome theming and friendly staff. I wish this was closer to home. I could hang out...

What a great place! We decided to find something off the map and against the corporate fast food world, and Siderail is a winner. It’s a place worth the extra time off the highway. Our server Ben was really nice and made some great recommendations. We got a half order of the pulled pork nachos. They are almost a meal in themselves for two. Made with fried wontons instead of chips, the nachos were delicious. I had the bacon burger with Cuban fries, my wife had the cordon blue with sidewinders. Both sandwiches were very good. Lots of flavor. Portions were generous. Prices very reasonable in this inflationary time. Check out siderail and support local business! Update 2023: We came back again on our way through. This will be a definite spot to stop for food while on the road. This time we tried the Stars and Stripes burger and the peanut butter and jelly burger. Both were absolutely delicious. The beef they use for the burgers is very good. Doesn’t taste like cheap restaurant meat. Side rail was super busy this time with a 45 minute table wait. We sat at the bar and got service right away. Ben was once again our server who is good at his job. Lots of friendly wait staff that kept everything moving while they were busy. Come on by for good food and...

Moved to Lima two years ago and have been trying out all the new restaurants. This one today, we discussed with the waitress my vegetarian options (almost nil) and she didn't suggest they could make X without the meat, as most places will. Then my 'seasoned' french fries arrived--with a big slice of bacon laid across the top. I don't know if it was a joke or not. Sent it back and waited ten more minutes while my husband ate his burger and let me steal a couple of his fries. They are just extruded premade potatoes, probably come in frozen because mine were undercooked. No flavor. Beverages were flat, no bubbles, definitely an off taste. Too many staffers standing around while your chair sides are sticky while you pull yourself closer to the table. Tables not clean, were tacky. Old dogeared menus with stains. Ketchup bottle was empty and had to get another from the waitress. Overall, management needs to step up their game. Food with flavor and non-sticky tables are an absolute minimum. Putting bacon on the vegetarian order, we're not sure what that was about, but it didn't feel nice, and an apology would have been appreciated, so we...