A breakdown of my experience of Gus's Diner:
+ Cute, shiny exterior with lots of glittery, chrome goodness inside to match...
- ... but overall some extra stuff piled up in weird places and looked a little worn, especially on the counter side
+ Super friendly staff
+ Great music appropriate to the theme
+ In-booth mini jukeboxes...
- ...that don't work. The coin slots are all taped over. Boooooooo.
+ Inexpensive
+ Root beer malts, a thing I haven't seen since going to Pinocchio's in Racine as a kid
+ The option of an old-school turkey dinner served on white bread and covered in turkey gravy...
- ...where the turkey ended up being a slab of equally old-school processed turkey loaf instead of carved turkey breast
- My meal came with soup - I went for the BLT soup out of curiosity and it was a cheesy base with halved cherry tomatoes and what appeared to be pieces of cabbage? It was actually surprisingly tasty, cabbage/lettuce/mystery leaves and all.
Overall the food seemed to fall a little more to the processed/Sysco side of the spectrum. I don't think I'll probably need to eat here again, but I might make my way back to give them root beer malt a try because I am having some serious nostalgia for one. It's hard to go wrong listening to oldies and sipping on a malt.