1950s American Diner — Restaurant in South Derbyshire

We visited here, we'd been wanting to try for a long time & finally got the chance. We were so excited, being from America finding these kind of gems is always fun! I will say my review may be a bit bias, I grew up in a family run pizzeria that was very successful in downtown Niagara Falls in the 90s.

The decor and style were great and hit the mark for sure.

The staff - one waitress was friendly however the other waitresses didn't seem like she wanted to be there - she was very short and it came across rude to be honest.

The food - unfortunately was very underwhelming.

Hotdogs, i wouldn't even order. American hot dogs are NOT sold in a glass jar on a shelf and boiled (the normal sized ones were confirmed to be prepped this way) - and i find the concept gross to be honest. They said the foot long ones are oven baked - we don't bake them either! American hot dogs are cold and refrigerated in packaging just like sausage & put on a grill (bbq) never ever boiled!

The giant mozzarella sticks, yeah that's on us as we seen the word giant but they were just a block of cheese covered in breading and grease - yes I know that's the point but there simply was no flavor and the breading to cheese ratio was very out of proportion - felt wasteful

The corn dogs - very sloppy not even fully coated and the batter where they were coated was very uneven

Nachos- stale tortillas that were so covered they went soggy - again it's alot to do with the way the plates put together and proportion

My husband had a burger and said that was decent.

Wings - well these were the kicker - they advertised wings as Buffalo OR Frank's for the hot sauce - anyone who truely knows wings knows Buffalo IS Frank's just jazzed up. They came as the whole wing which you'd never find in America, they'd always be cut into a drum or a flat and smothered in sauce - these hardly had any sauce (my son had Frank's - he said they did taste ok tho)

When speaking to the waitresses (who was very friendly) it came up in convo where I was from, (Buffalo,NY) and she had no idea that Buffalo wings originated there (fair enough alot of people don't know this from my experience) - and went on to share this with the other staff who also didn't know. (Which again is fine but I hope the owner knows, kind of seemed like they may not of based on what i mentioned above)

As i said maybe I'm a bit bias but I truely feel like they missed the mark here - so much effort went into the decor, style and vibe of this place but they missed the most important detail - the recipes and food

If your going to own a resturant specified to a countries cuisine - do the research! The recipes are just as important as the vibes. Imagine if someone opened a fish and chip shop abroad and served fish fingers & oven chips.

The history of this place is so cool, it's a shame that it felt like the owners had never visited the states to try the authentic foods they were advertising.

All in all the bones of the resturant are great, recipes can be more authentic & some of the front of house could be more warm...

I don’t know if we just had a bad experience considering the large amount of 5* reviews, but I really don’t get the hype. The food was poor. Especially for the prices charged, it just doesn’t meet the standard you would expect for the price you’ve paid. We had a burger for £18 which had no flavour. Yes the burgers were not frozen, but that doesn’t automatically mean they will taste good. For that price point you expect a much higher quality. It’s not even like it looked impressive and just lacked taste, it was just completely disappointing. We also had wings, which were honestly the nastiest chicken wings I’ve ever had. No meat, overcooked, drowned in sauce to hide the fact, but the sauce also wasn’t nice. Again, may be fresh, but doesn’t mean anything. I’ve never had wings so horrible, and I’ve had plenty from other places that were likely frozen but tasted much nicer. They were full wings unprepared, which I’ve never seen in a restaurant before, reminds me of the ones you get from the supermarket for a couple of quid a kg. Which brings me to my next point of how truthful the advertising of the portion size is- 1kg of wings ended up being 6 wings, but when you buy a kg of fresh wings you get many more than that, and considering chicken weighs less after cooking so that can’t be an excuse, how are you saying 6 is a kg?! Onion rings are just the cheapest frozen processed onion rings- again for the price we expected nicer ones. I also had a big issue with what I could see going on in the kitchen. I couldn’t see a sink for washing hands in the kitchen- either that or there was one it was just never used. I saw the cook touch the streaky bacon (raw) and continue to cook and touch other food. I also saw him texting on his phone and then go straight to preparing and touching food, again no hand washing between. Considering phones are so dirty given how they’re used, and likely not cleaned properly, this is a major no no when preparing food and anyone should know this! I would never come back here. The prices definitely need to reflect the standard of food being handed over- had the burger been £10 it would’ve been more matched to what was served, but still not amazing. The chicken wings could’ve been free and I still wouldn’t have enjoyed them. The waitresses weren’t awful, the blonde lady in particular was super sweet and friendly, but unfortunately that wouldn’t be enough to...

Visited today after having seen this place pop into one of my feeds. Thought it would make for something different compared to the usual restaurant suspects. The dining car is an original US car which has been renovated really well and really brings that 50’s charm to the dining experience. The menu is reasonably large with something for everyone as long as you want some sort of fried food, fortunately that was exactly what we wanted so we’re not disappointed. Both the breakfast and dinner menus are available at all opening times so from waffles to smash burgers are available to choose. I will say this now as if you order it will very soon become abundantly clear, the portion sizes here are substantial. This was confirmed based on all of us dining not being able to complete our meals. The diner offers take home boxes for anything you cannot finish, we did not take advantage of this but we saw others do so. The service here despite a full house was fast, efficient and polite and we were happy to leave a service tip to reflect that satisfaction.

The food…. So 3 persons dining we ordered as follows:

Starters 1kg chicken wings and honey bbq belly pork Mains Philly cheese steak sandwich Cheese burger Mexican burger Side of onion rings and mac&cheese

As previously mentioned the portions are substantial! The verdicts were as follows:

1kg chicken wings. 8/10 good flavour and juicy Honey bbq belly pork. 6/10 little sweet, dry and sweetness overpowered the pork Philly cheese steak sandwich. 4/10 the steak had been cut so small that it was lost amongst the onions, peppers and the little bit of cheese sauce. All very wet and this knocked on to the bun which did not hold up to that level of moisture. Cheese burger. 8/10 good balance of beef, cheese and onions. Would have benefited from a little more seasoning Mexican burger. 7/10 needed better seasoning as the beef was completely bland. Impossible to identify the chilli element. With improved seasoning and better chilli think this would be amazing.

So overall a 6/10 as some of the food let down the overall experience and when paying over £100 for this type of food it needs to hit on all aspects not just good service. Would we go again… I think we would like to try the breakfast offering but don’t believe we will rush to do so but we will go again at some point...