Gold Street sounds like it ought to be the name of the fanciest restaurant in town, yet this new 24-hour diner in the Financial District turns out to be decidedly downscale. Opened just last Saturday by Peter Poulakakos of Harry’s fame (his family owns the Financier chain of patisseries, as well as Ulysses, Harry’s Steak and Bayards on Stone Street), Gold St. looks more like a diner from New Jersey that has landed downtown than a hip new watering hole for Wall Streeters. And unfortunately, the menu suffers from multiple personalities: there are the expected burgers and salads on the list; a reasonable selection of comfort food classics like meatloaf, penne pasta, and a pork chop dish; breakfast items that are served all day; and then inexplicably, an extensive sushi menu, complete with $14 poached lobster rolls and three grades of tuna sashimi (akami, chutoro, otoro). Top all of this off with a rotating list of daily specials that also seems to have been chosen at random from someone’s copy of Joy, and you’ve got the schizo essence of Gold St.

Even stranger, there were no daily specials offered when a colleague from work and I visited this week–a disappointment. So we ordered some salads, a burger and a wrap. Our waitress, an over-excited Brazilian woman who was eager to shake our hands at the end of our meal murmured her approval of our choices and disappeared through the theme-y decor, a low-concept design that reads as little more than 90210’s Peach Pit meets Newark Airport’s Terminal C Garden State Diner.

If my colleague’s garden salad ($6) is anything to go by, heading to Terminal C may be a better bet than stopping in to Gold St. for a healthy plate. This industrial-style salad was an abomination of tasteless romaine, machine cut red bell peppers and wan, hothouse tomato. A raspberry vinaigrette struggled vainly to pep the dish up, but couldn’t help this flaccid salad. As aptly described by my colleague, the salad was a depressing testament to process over imagination. If ‘to salad’ were a verb, this would be its sad subjunctive tense.

The other appetizer we ordered, the roasted beets, arugula and goat cheese salad ($7.50), was better, but not without its problems. To its credit, the baby arugula was fresh and retained a peppery bite, and the croutons also added just the right amount of crunch to the dish. On the other hand, the ratio of greens to beet and cheese skewed heavily toward the greens, and the whole dish would have been improved with a lighter dressing and a larger portion and higher quality of goat cheese. Still, compared to the mixed salad, this was a dream.

My colleague’s BLT wrap ($7; $10 with chicken) was satisfactory, but miles away from special. Like other classic, simple recipes, the BLT is a high wire act that puts both its strengths and flaws on full display: if one ingredient lacks freshness or doesn’t hold up to the other two, the sandwich can fail utterly. At Gold St., the bacon was crispy and competently cooked, but the lettuce was flavor-free chopped iceberg, and the tomato tasted like a miserable cousin of the mealy wedge in the mixed salad. The most interesting thing about the BLT wrap was its presentation- it arrived to the table swaddled in wax paper and a drive-in style wire cupholder containing a paper cup filled with passable, but barely warm french fries.

My hamburger ($8, with swiss cheese and mushrooms an additional dollar apiece) was smaller than either of us anticipated–nearly slider-sized–yet it was ultimately mostly satisfying. Hot and not too greasy, Gold St.’s burger managed to avoid the worst sins of the genre: it held up to multiple toppings without falling apart and did not soak the bun. Also, we like that Gold St. asks patrons for input on doneness; you can get a rare or medium-rare burger without signing a consent form. All hamburgers served in the restaurant come with the same paper cup of fries that accompany the sandwiches and wraps. Just eat them quickly and don’t save them for later.

My colleague and I did not stay for dessert, though we understand that some of these come from the Financier kitchens, which is as solid a recommendation as any. Yet despite all of the problems we encountered during our visit, we are not ready to write off Gold St. just yet. For one thing, the Poulakakas clan has an admirable knack for listening to critical feedback and then working out early kinks in their menus. Then there is the more pragmatic reason: the area is in real need of a 24-hour jack-of-all-trades diner, and Gold St. will easily find a loyal crowd to keep the business afloat. We hope a perfect synthesis of both options takes place, turning what is currently Fool’s gold into something a little more precious.

Gold St., 2 Gold St., at Platt Street near Maiden Lane, 212-747-0797.