Harvey House Diner

Closed. Went this last weekend and they’d closed up shop.

I called at 1:50pm on a Sunday and they said they were open until 3pm. I had to hurry! I have heard tale that his place had a good Monte Cristo and I needed to know about it. Running out the door I pause for a breath check «Ewww»… but I gotta split! Damn my lazy bones for not getting a jump on the day.
I got there at 2:10, yes! Plenty of time. I knew what I wanted when I sat down. It took awhile for anyone to help me though. Finally, a lady (Julie) comes over and asks if I am here for lunch. That made me wonder what I else I would be there for… perhaps she thought I was sightseeing. I shrugged it off and put on my game face «Monte Cristo and water, please.» It didn’t take too long before the food came out… 5 – 10 minutes. I was pretty occupied by watching an obese child eat chicken strips… man, he looked happy.

The sandwich came with fries which was surprise to me (I didn’t even look at the menu). The fries were McDonald’s style but not as salty. The Cristo was pretty thin and the meat was not distributed evenly. It was missing the powdered sugar I am accustomed to, but that is probably just used to soak up grease… and they weren’t shy about showing some grease. I cut a piece off and dunked it in the raspberry dipping sauce. OH MY! It was wonderful! All of my aesthetic concerns aside this thing had some flavor. The sauce… oh the sauce.
It was no Bennigan’s, but it will satisfy a Monte Cristo craving.
Now, I’m finished and need a box… so I’m sitting there with my card out and my purse in my lap. (speaking of, all of the chairs had a shelf below the seat for your personal effects. The diner stools had hooks under the counter) and no one came by with the check. It’s 2:30 and I’m just looking around. I start thinking I need to get some use out of that collapsible Tupperware I have and need to bring it as my own «to go box» (I use too much Styrofoam because I always have leftovers) and I just zone out a while.
It’s 2:45 and I finally ask for the check and a box by flagging Julie down. At 2:50 the person who came to bus the table asked if I wanted a refill and if she could take my basket. I told her I wanted to box it up and she got me one. She started to wipe the table so I relocated to the counter closer to the server. She couldn’t escape me this time so she walked me to the register and rang me up. If I were a lesser person, I would have just walked out. No one would have even noticed. I mean they didn’t notice me the whole time. It’s past 3 now and they are officially closed but they have lot of people still waiting to be served. Good luck to them and their gallbladders.
Maybe it was my breath…
If this Monte Cristo wasn’t totally awesome I would have to go with a 1 but it gets a star all of it’s own. Total bill was 8.22 plus tip.
5÷26÷10 Update! I was just informed that Harvey House is under new management and no longer has Monte Cristos.

It’s a great place to take the kids on a day-​trip to Union Station. I loved being able to show my children the history of the place, including the architectural elements and vintage train-​era ephemera. But what really impressed them was…
The Foot-​long Corn Dogs!
Holy moly, I asked for this for my 4 year-​old, and we couldn’t believe it when it got to the table. He was actually kind of stunned by it, to be honest, and it became sort of a running joke the rest of the day.
But, yeah, the place has diner food, not unlike it’s probably always had.
If I’d been there on my own, I would have loved to have sat at the counter in the middle of the room, sketched or written in a book, checking the clock so I wouldn’t miss my train, and making sure no one sat on my fedora on the generously padded stool next to me… really soaking up the retro ambiance of the space…
I do wish the staff had more of a retro flair to their uniforms and attitudes. The place would really benefit from embracing that aspect of their history. Union Station has done such a great job of revitalizing their glory days with all that renovation, but what would really just take the place over the top is getting their staff into the duds of the day instead of the sterile, industrialized lameness of polo shirts and slacks.
I mean, we’re going there because it’s something we don’t get anywhere else in this day and age. Play it up a little more, I say.

I’m a sucker for a good gimmick and although Harvey House (located inside the awe-​inspiring, restored Union Station) makes an attempt at retro diner charm, I have to say, they need to go the whole 9-​yards and have the waitresses to wear vintagey diner uniforms. Only then would this place be authentic. Sorry! I wanted Flo, Vera or Alice coming over to me in a pink cotton uniform with starched white collars and cute little waitress hats on their heads, not ladies wearing black cotton chinos and polo shirts. This makes me sad.
I still say Harvey House Diner is A-​OK, because I spent the majority of the time staring at the giant photos of Union Station of yesteryear (and yes, there is a heck of a lot of waiting for food going on there Saturdays at noon. It gets packed). If I didn’t look at the staff or patrons, I could have easily gone to that happy old timey lala land that I drift off to when in a well-​restored landmark.
The food seemed rather meh, from what my dining partners said (unless you want a plain salad, there is nada for vegetarians), though the portions seemed rather huge (my boyfriend’s 4-​year old stared in awe at his «kiddie» corn dog which even Augustus Gloop himself couldn’t have managed to stuff down his throat).

Have visited Harvey House three times in the last two years and have regretted every one. If I could give it less than 1 star I would.
On one occasion we were turned away at the door because they ran out of food. It was 12:30 in the afternoon.
Speed of service: Miserable. Waited 15 minutes for a person to show up. Next time I had to flag someone down to realized we were in fact customers and not just somebody sitting at a table for no reason.
Friendliness of service: Decent, depending on who you get I guess. Only saving grace was having a toddler with us that the waitress was entertained by. She was rude to the people sitting next to us.
Cleanliness: Disgusting. Dirty utensils, dirty tables, food on the floor. Had to ask for our table to be cleaned of used food by the staff seating us. This is unacceptable and I should have left before sitting down.
Food: slightly better than fast food. By no means worth paying extra for and not worth wasting my time writing a review of. You can get this food anywhere, probably a lot better elsewhere.
Bottom line: If there were other places to eat in Union Station (that didn’t close long ago, that wasn’t a push cart of hot dogs, and didn’t cost as much as Pierponts) I would eat there instead of this place.

I had the Union Pacific, my wife had the Milwaukee (burgers). These were good. The Chocolate malt and Strawberry shake were good. Good place to eat while visiting Union Station and one of its exhibits.

The Harvey House Diner is located on the ground floor of the Union Station. I decided to come here for breakfast because it just seems like the kind of place that would make a really good breakfast. I ordered the fried egg sandwich with sausage and hash brown ($ 5.29). It suited my taste perfectly, and what a great value! Coffee was not such a great deal at $ 1.99.
Bottom Line: A very clean diner, with good food, and great location, too!

I love the story of the Harvey Girls and was thrilled to have breakfast in a real Harvey House – the ambience was perfect and the pictures on the wall showed the diner at the height of the rail traffic through Union Station. My husband and daughter had sausage and biscuits and gave them a strong thumbs up, and my sausage and eggs were equally tasty. It’s hard to go wrong with breakfast.
What made the restaurant memorable, however, was the wait staff. Friendly, helpful, and very accomodating.

I’m starting to wonder exactly what it takes to get a bad review from Charles Feruzza. That happy little fella loves food, apparently.
So I decided to try this place after visiting Union Station to use the Post Office. It got a pretty good review in the Pitch, mentioning the Monte Cristo, a food I had never had before.
The sandwich was decent, but the fries were definitely sub-​par. The milkshake was a bit on the small side as well. A little bit pricey for what you get, too, and what you get isn’t great. Don’t go out of your way.

I was surprised to find the classic Harvey House Diner in Union Station.
The first time I saw it was in the evening, when most of the stores were closed. We had to pass through the Diner to get to «The Link,» which connected Union Station with the Crown Center. The tables were set for the next day’s service. I don’t know any place in San Francisco that would leave condiments and napkins out in plain sight outside of business hours. There must be a culture of honesty and integrity in Kansas City.
During lunch we stopped by for a cheeseburger and fries, Missouri turkey with vegetables and gravy, and two diet Cokes, for $ 20.02 + tip. The waitress was friendly, and she held a nice conversation with us.

This place has gone throug a few reincarnations. Way back when, it was the Harvey Grill, and folks would sit around and eat hamburgers and shakes before or after their train ride at Union Station. After the rennovation, it was a fast-​food joint serving up hambers and stuff, Winstead’s like. And it was good. But they weren’t done.
While it used to be owned by the same restaurant group that owns the Herford House’s and Pierpont’s (next door in Union Station), Harvey Grill is now a full-​fledged diner. You’ve got the booths, the huge horseshoe bar. Even pies and cinnamon rolls. How’s the food? you ask. Great question.
I had the usual suspect breakfast, and tried one of the cinnamon rolls on for good measure. The meal was good and did the job. The cinnamon roll looked a little suspicious. I feel like that I can eyeball the homemade vs. the shipped-​in-​from-​who-​knows-​where cinnamon rolls, and this one looked suspect. It was a little too perfect-​looking, a little too much handiwork to be made fresh. If it was, well, then the baker/​pastry-​chef is pretty schnazzy and the roll itself should taste like it looks. Well, it didn’t. It wasn’t bad, but the bark was bigger than the bite, so to speak.
At any rate, I wrote off this place to the nether regions of my breakfast list, until I happened upon it again recently, and lo and behold, they had different-​looking cinammon rolls! The rolls sat on individual plates and were wrapped in individual saran wrap, a tell-​tale sign of baked-​daily. Here we have something. Unfortunately, I have not had it yet.
Anyhow, it’s a nice place and I can say there coffee is pretty good (they seem to use the same stuff as Pierpont’s), and it’s a great place to get some breakfast on the weekend before doing the Union Station tour.
—– UPDATE 2÷8÷8 —–
Sad to say, I had to knock a star off, because, well, I call em like I see em. First off, I had one of the cinnamon rolls, perhaps one of the largest I’ve ever seen (as big as my face?). Unfortunately, like most of the breakfast I had, things looked better than they tasted. I was debating whether to give the place only 2 stars, because while things were’s just plain gross there, their didn’t seem to be enough good stuff to justify an overall positive rating. BUT, I can honestly say that everything made fresh by the kitchen was great, the hash browns were generic but crispy and not oily, the eggs were cooked to order perfectly, and most importantly, everything was actually hot. This ‘heat’ concept was missing thorughout the rest of the food experience _​not cooked fresh by the kitchen_​. Case in point.
The biscuits and gravy were not horrible, but while the gravy was hot, the biscuits were plainly room temperature and had a texture to match. The same could be said for the face-​sized cinnamon roll. I even had the wait-​staff heat up the roll three times before it was above luke-​warm, and by that time, the bread got a little chewy, which happens when you microwave something like that. It’s too bad, though, that they had to microwave it, because a fresh-​baked cinnamon roll, even if room temperature, still tastes great if prepared to be eaten as such. Unfortunately, this restaurant places a premium on looks, not gastronomy. Like I said, the kitchen staff seemed to know how to get things done, but the overarching plan of this place was not thought out very well, and it shows in some of the dishes.
Do I have hope for this place? No. It’s been around too long, and unless the P&G restaurant group who owns it sells it to someone who has a vision, things are not going to change. But overall it’s not a bad place, and the fact that it’s in Union Station means you can still have a great experience after breakfast or lunch. The service was good, and at least the managers there seemed to care about how things are going. A decent place for a visit, if you have no where else to go.