Denny's

Discussion in 'Restaurant Reviews' started by Ken Anderson, Oct 25, 2015.

  1. Ken Anderson

    Ken Anderson Senior Staff
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    Denny's restaurants used to be a safe place to eat, and I suppose the food is still all right. But, either I've just found too many better ones or the quality has declined over the years. I believe that their menus are the same across the country, and I haven't seen noticeable differences in the quality of the food from one Denny's to another.

    My wife and I used to eat at the Denny's in Bangor, Maine often because she likes to order breakfast at all hours of the day or night, and that's allowed at Denny's. However, the last several times we've been there, the food was still okay, but the service was awful. Particularly when it came time to pay. We would finish our meal, and have to wait fifteen minutes or longer for someone to take our payment. We quit going for a while, then tried it again a couple of times, only to find that things hadn't improved.

    We were thinking that it was just the one in Bangor that was a problem but the last few times we've tried a Denny's in other parts of the country, we found much the same.
     
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  2. Chrissy Cross

    Chrissy Cross Supreme Member
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    I havent been to a Denny's in a very long time. As I remember, it was okay nothing special! It was breakfast and Im not one for eating breakfast out...except of course here at Joe's.:)

    Maybe you should write a review on Yelp about the poor service....they might try and improve it.
     
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  3. Corie Henson

    Corie Henson Veteran Member
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    I haven't been to the US yet but my husband was there in 1988. When he came home after 7 months, he would always mention Denny's during breakfast. I even thought the spelling was Dennis. From what I gathered, Denny's has the best breakfast in town since my husband had been there for every opportunity. He loves the baked beans with sausages and hash brown plus fresh orange juice. Well, I hope the menu hadn't changed otherwise those who read this will be wondering, hahahaaa.

    Just to share. My husband was on his way to San Francisco (from LA, it was 7 hours drive). He stopped at a Denny's eatery after midnight to have an early breakfast. After eating, he slept inside the car with the heater on - it was late October and he was in a mountainous area between LA and Frisco. But after a nap, he was awakened by the biting cold.. not knowing that the car heater would only work when the car is moving. But since he was sleepy, he had to get a shuteye amid the freezing temperature.
     
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  4. Pat Baker

    Pat Baker Supreme Member
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    I have not been to a Denny's for some time, I am not much for breakfast. Most of the Denny's in my area closed because had gone done so much for them. If I remember correctly the last time I was there it had bad service a big reason to not go back.
     
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  5. Ken Anderson

    Ken Anderson Senior Staff
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    By the way, Denny's does have lunch menus. My point was that they serve breakfast all day for those who want breakfast at time other than in the morning.
     
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  6. Chrissy Cross

    Chrissy Cross Supreme Member
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    Yes, that is true. Since I dont care that much about eating breakfast out I guess I missed that point but now that
    I think about it...what other places have breakfast all day? Not too many, maybe I Hop?
     
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  7. Cody Fousnaugh

    Cody Fousnaugh Supreme Member
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    We've ate both breakfast and dinner at Denny's. It was ok, but sure nothing to brag about. Our favorite place for breakfast is Waffle House and Mimi's Café. Waffle house makes a great ham/cheese omelet and their coffee is darn good. Their hash browns....... delicious. At Mimi's, we can order a Bloody Mary with our breakfast. For dinner, we sometimes choose Longhorn Steakhouse. They have a delicious prime rib or fillet minion.

    Now, on the other side of that coin, my wife makes blueberry pancakes that are very tasty. Basically her favorite breakfast at home is cereal, but absolutely LOVES a waffle at Waffle House.

    And, Waffle House has an electronic juke box and boy can I get the place "Rockin" with my Classic Rock music!
     
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  8. Chrissy Cross

    Chrissy Cross Supreme Member
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    Agree about Mimi's, Cody. Ive had breakfast, lunch and dinner there and it was always good. Its always very crowded here so service is slow sometimes.
     
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  9. Dave Sun

    Dave Sun Veteran Member
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    We enjoy going to Denny's down here but lately we have had to wait quite awhile for our food to get cooked. The servers are nice but I think they have trouble keeping their cooks.
     
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  10. Bobby Cole

    Bobby Cole Supreme Member
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    Denny's has had it's run but it is almost over for them.
    Richardson started out with Bob's Big Boy and spread himself pretty thin to the tune of going under and having to sell. His next venture was Denny's which made an immediate hit and spread all over the country but again, he spread himself out too much by selling franchises whom he could not directly control.
    When he decided to back down on the selling of franchises and concentrate on his corporate stores things got a little better but then if everyone recalls his company got sued twice for racism.

    A group of black secret service people claimed that the store they went to was slow serving them because they were black. Then, a black church choir claimed the same thing and also sued. Bob decided to settle out of court and gave up nearly 20 million beans between the two transactions.

    Behind the wake of the lawsuit, he then declared bankrupsy and reformed the corporation and called it "Flagstar."
    No longer Denny's corporation he then opened up a chain of buffet and steak houses called, "Quincy's which boomed until Ryans started opening up stores quite literally next door to the Quincy's holdings and underpricing them at every level. After about a 15 year run, Quincy's had to bite the bullet and close leaving a struggling Denny's even though Richardson bought an expansion football team called the Carolina Panthers which draws millions if not billions.

    Now, all that is left is a few old, run down corporate stores and whatever is left of the old and newer franchises. They do not have the QA teams going from store to store granting another year of business for franchises who keep up the expected quality like they used to, and managers on the corporate level are generally not as well trained as they should be.

    In short, the innovator of the "grand slam" breakfast is striking out fast.
     
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  11. Dave Sun

    Dave Sun Veteran Member
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    Bobby. No doubt you have checked out Denny's more than I have but if what you say is true about old run down stores, it doesn't pertain to our Denny's.
    Last year, they went through the whole store and replaced just about everything in the store. It is a clean, up to date, nice place to eat.
    As I stated above, the staff is very pleasant but the cook situation could be improved upon.
     
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  12. Joe Riley

    Joe Riley Supreme Member
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    The Manager is the key! It's just that good managers are hard to find. We had two King's restaurants nearby.

    The King's restaurant, that is further away, was never well run, and we had looooong waits for our order, bacon arriving cold and hard. Terrible! I had to ask...King of what??

    The closest one was well run for years, but the last time we were in for two "Old Glory" Sundaes... consisting of blueberrys and strawberrys with a little flag planted in the middle. Our LAST Old Glories, were half the size of a regular Sundae, and the Blueberries were hard and dry. We couldn't finish them. We complained to the "manager" and got some coupons. We have never been back. ....mostly because the tore the place down. HA!
    Sorry, for posting this in the Denny's thread!
     
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    Last edited: Oct 26, 2015
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  13. Ken Anderson

    Ken Anderson Senior Staff
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    The Bangor Denny's was remodeled and expanded a few years ago, but that didn't improve the poor service, unfortunately.
     
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  14. Bobby Cole

    Bobby Cole Supreme Member
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    Some ARE very nice and generally speaking are also franchises. If that is the case, the owners probably know what they are doing and are willing to go the extra mile to achieve their goals. At one time, the franchise price was so inexpensive that practically anyone could get into the business believing that their dream of riches and wealth had come true. Sadly, most of those types of dreams are dashed within the first year.
    There are also a couple of corporate stores, especially around Spartanburg, which are kept pristine but they should be because Spantanburg is the corporate headquarters for Flagstar.
    There is an old axiom in the Food and Beverage industry. "Everyone should own a restaurant and or a bar in order to get a life long streak of foolishness out of their system quickly."
    Uh, looking back at my original post, I didn't mention that I was one of the lead consultants contracted to open the Quincy's concept for Richardson (owner of Denny's / Flagstar.)
     
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  15. Joe Riley

    Joe Riley Supreme Member
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    Interesting that they named a restaurant Chain, after a Coroner!:eek:
    [​IMG]
     
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