‘The Diner’ Review

The Diner (also known as Goodlife Diner) has fair few branches scattered all over London and also one in Southampton and is temptingly styled as a retro Diner with booths and neon lights a plenty, but also boasts an extensive veggie and vegan menu. I think this is one of the few American diner style restaurants that we have eaten at as a family. Somehow all the milkshakes and sesame-seed buns makes us feel they won’t be suitable. Anyway Big S (milk allergy only) had been to a party at The Goodlife Diner and they were not only very helpful and accommodating on the phone when I scoped out the options before hand, but she also came home raving about the meal. This was the kind of destination that a teen wanted to go to.

On her recommendation we returned as a family and it was a very pleasant experience. The waitress was extremely well trained on allergies and immediately brought out the allergy folder. Naturally, as a Diner, it’s a burger and chips kind of place, not a place for exciting gastronomy – but that suited us for a simple family lunch. We always take our own rolls if we think burgers might be on the menu as invariably the bread isn’t suitable. But to our delight the Vegan gluten-free buns were safe (no egg in sight which is unusual for gluten-free). The girls said they were tasty if a bit crumbly, but what a joy to have a burger without the Home supplied bun.

The meat eaters of the family said the burgers were delicious and chips particularly fine (although looking at the allergy folder you might want to step away from the egg and dairy-free onion rings as they had a whopping 3,000 calories per portion!!)

I had a veggie burger which was only ok, it had that musty flavour of health food shops and dried herbs which I’m not particularly keen on. But there is an entire veggie and vegan menu to choose from, so I wouldn’t dismiss it as a unsuitable restaurant for vegetarians.

To our delight there was a dairy-free milkshake on the menu but we didn’t try it out as it was coconut flavoured and not to our taste.

So if you fancy a family meal in a proper ‘diner’ style setting with neon lights and milkshakes and burgers, I’d say The Goodlife Diner is a pretty good choice, not too expensive and caters well for all dietary requirements.