Food delivery on Coast Starlight LAX to SEA

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Sandwalker

Train Attendant
Joined
May 16, 2021
Messages
22
Location
San Diego
Hey all!

This is our second long trip on Amtrak. We're going business class going north LAX to SEA on the Coast Starlight. I'm hoping we have dining car access, as I see most say they do but some say they didn't! Since we have to pay out of pocket, unlike sleepers, we plan to just try lunch via dining car. Then have food delivered (hopefully) in the afternoon/eve for dinner. Pizza or whatever is close to one of the longer "smoke stops."

Can anyone suggest a few good stops for that? Schedule wise, here's the longest stops I see:
Day 1
2:58p | 3:11p - San Luis Obispo, CA (SLO)
7:52p | 8:04p - San Jose, CA (SJC)
9:12p | 9:27p - Oakland, CA (OKJ)
Day 2
3:40p | 3:56p - Portland, OR (PDX)

Any info would be appreciated! TIA
 
The Portland Union station is home to Wilfs Restaurant. Unfortunately, it looks as if they don't open until 4PM Wednesday - Saturday, so your train would need to be running a tad late to order there.
 
Sandwalker said:
Hey all!

This is our second long trip on Amtrak. We're going business class going north LAX to SEA on the Coast Starlight. I'm hoping we have dining car access, as I see most say they do but some say they didn't! Since we have to pay out of pocket, unlike sleepers, we plan to just try lunch via dining car. Then have food delivered (hopefully) in the afternoon/eve for dinner. Pizza or whatever is close to one of the longer "smoke stops."

Can anyone suggest a few good stops for that? Schedule wise, here's the longest stops I see:
Day 1
2:58p | 3:11p - San Luis Obispo, CA (SLO)
7:52p | 8:04p - San Jose, CA (SJC)
9:12p | 9:27p - Oakland, CA (OKJ)
Day 2
3:40p | 3:56p - Portland, OR (PDX)

Any info would be appreciated! TIA
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Those look like extremely small windows to me, whether or not the train is running on time. It would seem quite possible that either the delivery person would end up waiting quite a bit for the train to arrive--which they may or may not be able to do--or they will arrive after the narrow window when the train is in the station.
 
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Maybe you have time to hop off and grab something--probably from a vending machine. If you get lucky maybe the train will be ahead of schedule and you'll get more time.
 
Some pizza places might have ready to go food, but a lot of times it takes a little time to prepare a pizza.
 
I agree with the posts above: You will be adding a lot of stress to your trip if you are trying to obtain food during smoke stops. Things will go wrong more than right!

Your best bet is to take some high quality home-made or purchased food/snacks along with you. Treat yourself to things you really like. Supplement this with hot food purchased from the Cafe car.
 
A surprising number of members and guests have reported success with en-route delivery. It is possible to receive cold food or lose money on a miss-connect but life is full of risk and if you wanted the most dependable option you would not be on Amtrak. My advice is to befriend the staff aboard your train and see what they have successfully ordered in the past. They will likely know better than most and have the most current information. I've had luck buying food in PDX but that was before the pandemic when trains were arriving early on a daily schedule.

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tgstubbs1 said:
Some pizza places might have ready to go food, but a lot of times it takes a little time to prepare a pizza.
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I was on the SWC last April when they still had flex food. We found a pizza place with good reviews just a block or two away from ABQ station and called about 50 minutes before our scheduled arrival into ABQ. We were running over an hour late, and gave them approximate arrival times. As soon as we arrived my travelling partner went out to the front of the station, got the pizza, paid, and came back. For us, it worked out very well. It was a 30 minute stop.
 
We had food delivered on a lot of routes while on a circle trip a couple years back during flexible dining. I worked directly with directly managers and chefs, ensuring payment and gratuity, to make it happen, and planned it before we even left home. One Chef in Glenwood Springs, CO hit it out of the park with the amazing food he provided! On the CS route we had Dennys in Klamath Falls for breakfast, not the best, but better than the on board choices. With some fancy footwork, one can make this happen.
 

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Some friends and I took the Coast Starlight (in coach) from LAX to SEA in 2019, and we ordered pickup from a restaurant right outside the station at one of the long stops (unfortunately I can’t recall which stop or which restaurant it was), but it worked out well. We ordered well before 40 minutes the train was due at the station, and our food was ready and waiting to be picked up by the time our train got in. The friend who volunteered to go get the food had paid for the food and come back to the train well before the train pulled out of the station. But this restaurant was literally next to the station.. there’s always a risk things might go wrong, but if you choose a restaurant right around the station at a long stop and order with enough advance time, you should be able to enjoy hot, tasty food even in coach 🙂 sending you good wishes it all works out well!
 

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