Light Rail Family Restaurant

So it’s a brisk 38 degrees today and my lunch partner wants to visit Light Rail for lunch. I walk into their restroom and am shocked at how cold it is in there. Great! I get to sit on a frigid toilet in an uncomfortably cold restroom just because my lunch partner made a poor choice for lunch today? This is a lesson I only need to learn once.
I understand that way back in the day people were accepting of a non-​heated or cooled restroom, but those days are long behind us. Please run some duct work into your restrooms already so your PAYING CUSTOMERS will have a reasonable restroom experience in your establishment. It’s sad that these words even need to be stated in 2016.

Best breakfast on the south side of Charlotte!!! The bacon is cooked perfectly, home fries are the bomb and the sweet tea is to die for!!!

Ho-​hum food and poor service. And a feeling like you went back 40 years in time with the décor. The only good quality about this restaurant are the prices.

awesome restaurant. I love you guys. this family restaurant is the best. Family Restaurant are some of the hardest working people. Anyone complain about this restaurant like the David V. and Rick B. is a super duper weirdo. Why does hard working people have to deal with stupid these Unilocal reviewer? they are bad gossiper with no friend or no one to talk to? David and Rick you guys are reason why this world is horrible. If you dont like something. then offer to help. Everyone in the world is doing the best they can with what they have. Keep infecting Unilocal with lies and slanders, for what? your review only show what a narrow mind person you really are. You are like the crazy guys that stand in middle of the roads yelling blaspheme that no one will ever pay any attention. Be a better man and help someone instead of going online and threaten people with little comment like restaurant have to kiss your hinds in order to get 5 star reviews. Grow some balls and be part of the solutions not the problem.

I judge a breakfast place by a couple of things. One, do they have real butter in the little plastic tubs on the table? I’m not wasting precious carbs on a pancake slathered with margarine. Two, is the bacon legit? We’ve all had that weirdly flavorless, transparent cheapass bacon. Not wasting precious calories that way either. Third, are the grits creamy or watery? Light Rail passes all three tests. It’s not fancy, it’s not artisanal, it’s not farm-​to-​fork. It’s a dive-​y diner that’s gonna get your eggs right, keep your coffee cup filled, and make you a pancake like your Grandma used to — complete with Aunt Jemima syrup. Service is fast and friendly. Portions are generous, not ridiculous. You’ll eat your breakfast, not waste it. If you want bacon and eggs that come from heirloom chickens and pigs that were fed on acorns and chia seeds, keep looking. But if you want some damn breakfast, Light Rail will cook you up some damn delicious, old school diner breakfast.

Great breakfast here… love the corned beef hash esp. Very popular go early on weekends. …good coffee too… funny waitresses

Tasty food and good service. A great place to go when you don’t know what you want to eat or with a crowd of people with varying taste.
Delicious homemade pound cake.

Let me start by saying I had my order to go but the servers, 2 women both were attentive but as was noted in one of the reviews were not overly friendly.
When you have a small business like this, customer service is EVERYTHING, you better be schmoozing each and every customer that walks through the door.
You can not afford to be lazy, enough with that.
I ordered a Sausage and Egg on Muffin to go and a Large OJ.
The muffin was awesome, 2 sausage patties, I couldn’t tell but 2 eggs, I believe, on a great toasted muffin. That is saying a lot if you have been to McDonald’s ordered a sausage and egg muffin, and it has shrunk over the years, muffin raw, sausage small… well you know.
I did talk with the server and prodded her a little bit with small talk and she did even give me a smile before I left. They should be more engaging.
I Will return, seems casual and comfortable, front end of the house is a little run down but still homey like when I was a youngster and the back end is updated but a little colder in my opinion.
Give it s shot, it is not a Bistro, some fancy restaurant, just a easy going meal at a good price.

I was suspicious upon entering this restaurant as it was a Friday night around dinner time and the parking lot was not very busy, and when you look at the restaurant from the road, it is not well lighted. A friend had recommended Light Rail Restaurant and said she eats there often when they are in this part of Charlotte. So with that recommendation we (a large group of us) went for dinner without a reservation. When we got there we were warmly greeted and made to feel quite welcome. We were led to the room in the back which can seat a lot of people. We were a dozen and they quickly set up the tables for us to have a long table and this was a private room for us only for the meal. The menu really has something for everyone. It has grilled meats, fried meats, you can eat healthily or pig out. I had the Friday special, which was pork over a bed of stuffing (kind of like Thanksgiving turkey), with a side salad, rolls and cabbage. Others had the meatloaf (which looks wonderful), grilled shrimp, the grilled chicken, so many choices. All of the meals come with choice of bread, two sides (okra, greens, beets). There was even pudding on the side list, so you can have a dessert without paying more. This is not a fancy restaurant, and the food is not complicated food. I would equate it to diner food that you find while driving in New Jersey. I say this in a complimentary way. I love diner food in New Jersey. So if you want to have a good meal, for a reasonable price (less than $ 15 per person including tip, tax, meal, drink, dessert), then this is your place. Also a shout out to our waitress Terry, she did a great job. Everything was brought as ordered and she had a fun personality. Also the guy at checkout was quite polite and conveyed we are appreciative of your business, which was nice. I will definitely return on my next trip to Charlotte.

We stopped at Light Rail restaurant because we were driving by. We were very pleasantly surprised. The staff was extremely welcoming and friendly. The server Terry explained that the food was fresh and made in-​house. We had chicken and dumplings and the rib eye steak. Everything was delicious. The prices are extremely reasonable. The service was great. The customers all seem to be regulars and they all know each other. The treated us like we had been going there for years. It was a wonderful experience and we will be back!

My rating is based on breakfast only which was plentiful, well prepared and reasonably priced. I would return if back in Charlotte.

This family own restaurant seems to have everything you can think of on their menu. I love having their baked chicken with dressing and gravy that is on their Thursday’s special. I am never disappointed! Their breakfast here is also very enjoyable. The staff is friendly and service is always fast!

My favorite place for lunch. The service is always is always great. You’re seated right away, the food is brought out very timely and the wait staff is always around with refills or just to check on me. They are open for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Breakfast is available at all hours. It’s always busy at lunch time, but they handle it with ease.

I won’t eat here unless it’s a last option.
I was next door at the Gun Store taking a class on Saturday. It’s a 10 hour class and to keep the class going and get done we were told we could work thru lunch. We should go next door to this restaurant, get the order to go and come back and keep learning. Good plan!
While the plan was great this restaurant is not. No one working there looks remotely happy to see anyone. There was a man there who looked to be in good shape but just rude, short and generally unhappy. He never greeted anyone. He never made any eye contact. He took my order wrong and then acted like it was someone else’s fault when I mentioned it. Here is a clue. When you make a $ 1.50 mistake you don’t bill them for it. You comp it and move on. Just a hint. He seemed like he had better things to do.
The front door area smelled like a truck stop bathroom and they were trying to kill the smell of urine with perfume. Industrial strength perfume.
The menu is pretty normal fair and the food is average. Anyone reading this could order the same frozen crap from CISCO and make the same average food they are making without much fuss.
The other staff seemed to act just like the manager or owner guy. They all moped around and I would encourage them to find a place were life is happier and they end up working for people who care.
The dinning area looked like something out of 1970’s Communist Russia. It was old, dirty and disgusting. The carpet has to be well over 30 years old and dirty as ever.
Frankly you would have thought they would have been happy with 15 take out orders at lunch. Take out is the good for sales. You don’t give up any sitting space and your staff is not burdened with waiting on anyone, but that is not a problem there since there were only about 4 — 6 people eating there on a Saturday at lunch.
The clue there should have been that no one was eating during a weekend lunch. How this place stays open is amazing to me.
Over all I think a 1 star rating is still a bit high. They should look around and see what they are up against. This place should have been closed 10 years ago.

Great food, great service! My extended family has breakfast at the Light Rail regularly and we love it. The food is delicious and the staff is friendly, fast and accurate.
Just today there were 14 of us eating New Year’s breakfast. We had 2 servers and they took all our orders efficiently and them brought our food quickly with no errors. I had the «Belt Buster” – 2 pancakes, 2 eggs and 2 sausage patties. I had blueberry pancakes, but there are lots of options. My sister got the Western omelet and we shared. There was plenty of food – enough to take home some leftovers – and it was delicious.
During the meal our servers unobtrusively kept our coffee cups refilled and brought more cream when we needed it without us needing to ask.
I highly recommend the Light Rail Restaurant.
During

One of the best breakfasts I’ve had. Ordered eggs, country fried Steak, grits, and biscuits. All perfectly prepared. Will definitely be back.

Not the fanciest place but the food makes up for it. It is diner food but sometimes that’s just what you want! Delicious fried chicken tenders, awesome club sandwiches! Their salads are nice and crisp. Desserts are a little dry and eh but the rest of the food is enough to make me a regular here.

I won’t here again. I’m rating it with one start due to the staff. The food was OK. I definitely did not like the environment. The host that sat us, he had no personality, and he was very unprofessional. Spend your money elsewhere, with merchants that appreciate your patronage!

Consistent great food and excellent wait staff. Work well with seniors but crowd is diversified. Reasonable prices.

Been coming here for years… Used to be the Flamingo, but changed names a few years back… ALWAYS good food, good service, good prices. We have our family reunion in the private room in the back every August. This place is wonderful for breakfast, lunch, or dinner. Breakfast this morning reminded me that this is one of my favorite places in town