Diner owner in Garfield / SAT 5-27-23 / Squee-inducing / Sarcastic response to a first-world-problem complaint / Approval often uttered impatiently / Very clear say colloquially / California-based soft drink company

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My entire experience with this puzzle can be summed up in three words: PEAK HOURS BEANSTALK. As in, "Jack preferred to climb the BEANSTALK early in the morning, rather than during PEAK HOURS, so that he could avoid traffic and fees (to say nothing of fies, foes, and fums)." I think you've got a just-fine, ordinarily difficult Saturday puzzle here, but when you drop PEAK HOURS and BEANSTALK, bam bam, and then *cross* them with HAIRY (23A: Like a lion), well, the puzzle becomes virtually impenetrable. TAMPER PROOF, even. I had inklings early on that something was amiss. For instance, I really hated HAIRY as an answer for [Like a lion]. "Lots of animals are HAIRY!" I internally jeered. But then eventually I confirmed ("confirmed") the "Y" with ALLEY, and so HAIRY really really didn't wanna budge. But down below, I couldn't make the short stuff work. No way to see NEWT or STAGY, for instance, and those short answers are the things I rely on for traction in a wide-open puzzle like this, as well as for access to the corners. And yet—with the (wrong) "K" in place from BEANSTALK, I figured the letter in front of it had to be an "S" ... and it was! SALUT! (40D: French toast). So now the two very long, very wrong answers had literally carried me across the grid and into the SW corner, where I started having success, so ... anyway, PEAK HOURS and BEANSTALK stayed in place a long, long time. I had much of the SW done and *all* of the NE done before I started to put enough of a squeeze on the center that those wrong answers finally popped out of place. 

But even getting TOTES ADORBS (my first long Across) (33A: Squee-inducing) didn't dislodge PEAK HOURS or BEANSTALK: wrong answers, yes, but they had the right letters for the TOTES ADORBS cross. And yet ... as is fitting and possibly even TOTES ADORBS, a dog came to my rescue: TOTO! TOTES to TOTO! I had the back ends of the other long Acrosses  (PROOF, TRAINS) pretty well sorted, and so when T-US-- PROOF just looked like total garbage, I boldly pulled both HOURS and STALK and bam, in went TAMPER PROOF, and then in went MODEL TRAINS (32A: Bad things to lose track of?). Felt great to finally get the breakthrough I needed. What felt less great was having the replacements of PEAK HOURS and BEANSTALK be significantly duller answers. PEAK TIMES is somehow much less vivid, and BEAN ... PLANT? Woof. As Jack might've said before descending the BEANSTALK, that's a long way down. Ah well, at least TAWNY was (infinitely) better than HAIRY. That's something.

The fat middle of this puzzle is fine, but I actually think the corners are the most entertaining part, which is saying something, as usually in a puzzle like this, the middle has all the marquee stuff and the corners tend to be kind of perfunctory. But today they're fizzing with energy: GINS UP GOODIE "NEED ME?" OPEN TAB DADJOKES had me in a good mood right from the start (to be clear, dad jokes never put me in a good mood, but as an answer, DAD JOKES was pleasing, and the clue really worked well (19A: Pop corn?) (as in "corny jokes your pop might make")). MOB FRONT "TO RECAP..." HERNIA ... RACE BIB "ALL MINE!" BIG NO-NOS ... LAB WASTE "POOR YOU...""SAVE US!" ... the corners are really working hard to ensure you're having a good time. I appreciate it. I even liked seeing WOAH, a lamentably tenacious bit of nonsense, because the clue was perfect—the clue *knows* the spelling is garbage (however popular) and it tells you so, with its addition of a disdainfully eye-rolling "in one spelling." This puzzle has me liking DAD JOKES and WOAH—a truly huge accomplishment. 

Hope you found things to like. See you tomorrow, or whenever.