New Naperville restaurant delights kids with trains, toots

A BNSF train engine pulls to its stop and sounds two toots on the horn.

Off the train comes a hot dog and some crinkly fries, a cup of chocolate milk topped with whipped cream, and a cupcake with sprinkles and a toy whistle as a garnish.

If kids ruled the world, this is how every restaurant would work.

It's reality at 2Toots Train Whistle Grill, which opened recently in Naperville. The 10-year-old business also has locations in Bartlett and Glen Ellyn and previously operated in Downers Grove.

"Every seat here touches the train," co-owner Dale Eisenberg said about the electric Lionel models that deliver orders and delight kids.

Three months after the restaurant opened, Jules and Jackson McCullough of Naperville, 3 and 1, already are regulars.

"When we first came in, all he would do was say 'Train! Train!'" Beth DeGeeter of Naperville said about Jackson, her friend's son whom she brings to the restaurant when she's baby-sitting. "They request to come here all the time."

While children are easily excited by the novelty of the trains and the sound of the whistle, parents can be harder to please.

But Eisenberg and co-owner Mike Ventre are restaurant industry veterans who came to the suburbs in the late 1970s to open a pancake house that still operates in Park Ridge.

At 2Toots, the restaurateurs serve grass-fed beef without sulfites, hormones or preservatives, which Eisenberg said is thrilling to parents who expected "carnival food." He said that's part of what helps 2Toots stay in business, while similar train-themed restaurants, such as one that operated for a while in south Naperville, don't always survive.

"The hot dogs, hamburgers and chili are actually good for you. That's important to these young moms," he said. "The parents are surprised the food's good."

2Toots can host birthday parties in its new space, which seats about 100 people at 1567 North Aurora Road in the Riverbrook shopping center. The retail area is one of two in Naperville still struggling with the loss of a Dominick's grocery store, which closed at the end of 2013.

Ventre said he hopes the presence of 2 Toots will attract other kid-friendly retailers.

"We've acted as a draw in other locations," Ventre said, as new shops have opened near 2Toots in Bartlett since it opened six years ago at 203 E. Main St.

Inside the 1950s-themed restaurant, with boomerangs on countertops and bright red upholstery on the seats and booths, Ventre and Eisenberg say the easy entertainment of trains and a meal has one more positive effect:

"Families are not sitting on their phones," Eisenberg said. "We're all about family connectivity."