Who are these guys?

Each time we eat at Tom’s Restaurant in Brooklyn (not to be confused with the sleazy Tom’s in Manhattan, famed Seinfeld locale), we marvel at the energy owner Gus and his wait staff put into being friendly. Watching the staff scurry through the Normal Rockwellish setting, serving orange slices and cookies to patrons scarfing down pancakes and eggs , we are half-inclined to think they are putting us on, that at any moment Gus and staff will pull off their friendly rubber masks to announce, ha ha, we are stuck forever in hell.

But they never do.

Gus was doing his thing long before the neighborhood gentrified, when even the Brooklyn Museum, a few blocks away, was falling apart.

This is the best diner food anywhere. And, baby, it’s cheap.