Main Street Station

Awkward! First of all. Don’t walk in the trackside entrance. It opens right in to the middle of the dining room with a group of occupied tables. There’s no dedicated hostess stand and the waitresses just seemed confused when we asked for a table. They may need more help or our waitress was just oblivious to us. Slowwwww getting refills. The chips are a little heavy. Not the lighter corn chips you may be used to. Not warmed, but not stale either. The salsa was fine. Homemade and mediocre. When our entrees came out they were cold. Bummer! I had their «Hot! Hot!» Steak with ranchero sauce. Not that hot, but raw diced onions covering it? Culinary fo paux! I was hoping it would be good since it’s so close to me, but I probably won’t go back.

We love the food at Main Street Station. The salsa is delicious, and any main dish we have ever ordered has been tasty! They have food specials every day too, so you can get a good deal. They usually also have coupons in the coupon clipper and/​or on planit northwest. The service is usually ok. Not great, but good. Margaritas are not very strong, so they are are a but pricey for what you get, but they usually have a drink specials too. Overall, it is our favorite mexican restaurant around.

We love coming to this restaurant JUST for the food. Their food is excellent, but the service is always slow. It seems that they only have one or two servers working for their 15+ tables. So if you are not in a hurry, or don’t mind a long wait for your food or drinks, come in to enjoy the food. Their menu is reasonably priced as well.

The Station is great! Love the dollar taco night. It puts other Mexican restaurants to shame. I would go once a week if I could.
Writing this has made me hungry, maybe I’ll go tonight!
Update: Yep, I went in again tonight. Great as always! It is really great food for a really great price.

Good food, good prices. Service is usually slow but for the love of god, stay away on Sundays. Service is awful. NO free soda refills FYI

Main Street Station is one of my favorite Mexican places in the area. I haven’t even found one near my school in Boston that I like better. The service is friendly, the food is delicious, and the bill is usually quite reasonable.
The décor is really interesting and unexpected. Since the restaurant is the entire McHenry train station, old train line signs hang everywhere. Booms and lights decorate the walls. Signs from Wells Fargo announcing the way to travel across the US in just four days greet you at your table. It makes for a great atmosphere.
Every Monday is Dollar Taco Night, so my family usually goes then. You can get just about anything you want in your Dollar Taco, except steak. They come with cheese, lettuce, and tomatoes.
The chips and salsa at this restaurant are phenomenal. I think they make the salsa fresh every day, and they might even make the chips. They’re bottomless, and come even if you’re just getting some drinks.
Their margaritas are hit or miss, and their drinks can be rather expensive. A pitcher of margaritas is over $ 20. They’re usually pretty healthy with the tequila though. They do have a full bar, so you can get anything from beer and wine to shots and mixed drinks.
I look forward to coming to this restaurant every time I’m home from school. If you like Mexican food, you really can’t miss it.

My family and I went there on Monday, June 9, 2014 for dinner, having never been there before. It was close to where we needed to drop off my step son and daughter-​in-​law. The chip with salsa they gave us at the start were excellent and free flowing. We then placed our orders. When we got the food and ate it, it just didn’t taste that good. The taco I ordered has some kind of cheese on it that was a cross between Velveeta and cheddar… just weird. The tamales were steeped in some gross gravy. Gravy on tamales? I had never heard of that before and the gravy was scraped off as best as we could. The cheese fries were the only decent thing we ate during the meal. And ever since that night, I personally have been sidelined by some sort of stomach pain… I think I may have caught a virus from the place. No way to prove it, but it is the only place we had been when I started feeling sick. Never again!

A kitschy Mexican restaurant inside a vintage themed train station. It’s quaint and sometimes you just want to get away. Large menu.

Never disappoints. Has the special today, skirt steak w/​hot peppers. AWESOME!
Only 4 stars because the owner is always grumpy and borderline rude.

Best Mexican food ever! Huge portions and good prices. Definitely recommend this place!

The food preparation was somewhat slow and the margaritas were weak but the staff was friendly and the food delicious. Great value with large portions. Highly recommend the steak burrito and chicken fajitas (a «½» order of the later still left plenty to take home). Fun décor.

Let me start out by saying Im not a huge fan of mexican food. I think it all tastes the same no matter what you get or where you get it from. Just kinda ok nothin special sometimes tastes like barf. Anyways… then theres main street station. The place is a total dive! Parking lot sucks and lets face it, its a train station which means you get the occasional whistle which can be distracting. It seems you dont get your food until an hour after you order (every time I swear) plus to get the check normaly takes 20 minutes, due to the wait times the place is always packed. Your probly asking why would I be giving it 5 stars after a big hate rant, well let me tell you. The food is AMAZING!!! Yeah you have to wait an hour for it but they give you chips and salsa right away. The salsa is excellent, chips could maybe go for an upgrade but itl hold you over. Im cheap too, always thinking Im geting over charged for stuff, not here. No matter what you get it will exceed your expectations. You get huge portions and in my opinion very inexpensive. Everytime I go its the same story: get there, bitch about the parking, complain how hungry I am while Im devoring chips and salsa, followed by grunting making noises due to the flavor orgy in my mouth from my order, baggin up the rest for lunch the next day and end up giving the waitress like a 30%+ tip because I always think the bill shoulda been more. I consider myself a serious foody and this place is a total gem that if you havnt experienced your missin out. Enjoy

Good food, good prices. Been a McHenry staple for years. Try the combo’s or a steak fajita.

Usually the food is good and the service decent. As of late, neither is true. Seems they have 2 waitresses serving 80 people. Hope you’re not in a hurry. When you order, expect to have something close to what you ordered, not exactly what you ordered. As for drinks and refills, bring your own or you’ll sit around thirsty for a long time. Shame too, because at one time, it was one of the better spots in town.

I have to admit, I was a little worried about coming here but wow! It was so good. And inexpensive! We had 2 margaritas each (if they have them when you go, ask for the red pear margarita if you like sweet drinks), a small guacamole (which was enormous), the sampler appetizer (again, enormous), two main entrees which were delicious (stuffed stone crab special and a shrimp & jalepeño special) and we both ordered flan (once again — gigantic). All that for $ 50!
Service was a little slow but extremely friendly.
Restaurant dining room is very clean and decorated with a classy train theme. We didn’t visit the bar but it looked like it was hopping with McHenry locals.
Will definitely come back!

This is all I have to say… GROSS, GROSS, GROSS.
Our meat tasted disgusting.
Please save your money and your stomach.

Great! I always get the Buster, eggs over easy, sausage patties, no toast. I then pile it all together in my all time favorite breakfast meal.

Probably the worst Mexican restaurant in McHenry. We thought we would try some place new since we usually end up at Las Palmas. First, the place is super small which was surprising. The windows are super drafty so we were quite chilled while eating. The margaritas are super sugary and very small. I would equate them to margarita soda. The fajitas were super salty but otherwise they were good in comparison to most others because they actually used fresh vegetables. They also came with guacamole which is usually an extra charge. The mole sauce was more like jello pudding than mole sauce. Worst of all, the service was terrible. Just terrible. We waited 20 minutes to get our check and over 10 minutes after we handed it to her.
We definitely won’t eat here ever again.

Great steak fajitas! Everything else was good. I wasn’t as impressed as other people with the selection they provide. Prices were about the same as anywhere else that serves Mexican food.

The food is good and the prices are good. The restaurant was a little smoky and dark.