What’s better? Old diners or new diners?

Are new diners really better than the old standbys? The same week that the Pitch reviewed the new 119th Street Diner in Olathe, another home-style restaurant — this one in midtown — closed. The family-owned Carly Sue’s Family Diner at 120 East Gregory lasted nearly a year. Fat City noted, last September, that the neighborhood diner had its distinct eccentricities (many comments were scathing) in both food and service. But the owners, the Byrum family, muddled through until last week.

The owners of Carly Sue’s could have learned a few tricks about running a classic diner from Greg Hubler, who bought the 73-year-old Dagwood’s Cafe last year from longtime owner Ruby Morland. Hubler knows his stuff: Keep the menu simple and easy to execute, and service needs to be snappy. Carly Sue’s was just too ambitious for its own good. And maybe too clean.