Denny's
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Denny's | |
 |
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| Type | Restaurant |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1953 |
| Headquarters | Lakewood, California, USA |
| Key people | Harold Butler, Founder |
| Industry | Casual dining restaurant |
| Website | www.dennys.com |
Denny's is the largest full-service family restaurant chain in the United States. It operates over 2,500 restaurants in the United States, Canada, Curaçao, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, and Puerto Rico. Denny's is known for its 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and 365 days a year operations, serving breakfast, lunch, dinner, and dessert around the clock. Many of their restaurants are located in proximity to freeway exits and in service areas of small towns and remote areas. Unlike many other restaurant chains, Denny's does not close on holidays or nights, except where required by law.
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[edit] History
Denny's was founded under the name Danny's Donuts in 1953 by Harold Butler in Lakewood, California. Butler expanded to 20 restaurants by 1959, when he renamed the chain to Denny's. The business continued to grow and by 1981, there were over 1,000 restaurants in all 50 U.S. states. In 1977, Denny's introduced the still-popular Grand Slam breakfast. In 1994, Denny's became the largest corporate sponsor of Save the Children, a national charity.
Denny's headquarters were located in Irvine, California until 1991. At that time, the main office was moved to the Spartanburg, South Carolina headquarters of the parent company Trans World Corporation that acquired Denny's in 1987. Eventually, Denny's operations dominated the parent company to such an extent that Trans World Corporation, after several name changes, became Denny's Corporation. It now trades on the NASDAQ under the symbol NASDAQ: DENN. Today, Denny's operates about 1,600 restaurants in 49 U.S. states (Wyoming is the only state without a Denny's), Canada and Mexico. There are also about 578 Denny's restaurants in Japan operated under a license by a subsidiary of Seven & I Holdings.
[edit] Controversy
During the early 1990s, Denny's was involved in a series of discrimination lawsuits involving several cases of servers denying or providing inferior service to minorities, especially African American customers. After settling a class action lawsuit for $54.4 million, Denny's rolled out an industry-leading racial sensitivity training program for all of its employees. Denny's has also improved its public relations image by featuring African Americans in many of its commercials, including a commercial featuring Sherman Hemsley and Isabel Sanford (both actors from the popular The Jeffersons television show).
In 2001, Denny's was chosen by Fortune magazine as the "Best Company for Minorities," and has consistently remained near the top of the list since. Although its image has not yet been completely untarnished, Denny's has made great strides in eliminating discrimination.
In the controversial book Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich, the author included her experience working in a restaurant chain known for its line of breakfast foods. To avoid lawsuits, due to the descriptions of less than desirable work conditions, she mentions the name of the restaurant under the pseudonym "Jerry's". Readers have speculated that Denny's is the restaurant chain she is describing.[citation needed] The Jerry's chain of restaurants was folded into Denny's in 1989.
[edit] Dateline NBC report
In October of 2004, Dateline NBC aired a segment titled "Dirty Dining". This segment examined the ten most popular family and casual dining chains in the United States, including Bob Evans, Red Lobster, Waffle House, Chili's, Ruby Tuesday, IHOP, Applebee's, TGI Friday's, Outback Steakhouse, and Denny's. As part of the segment, the producers examined the health inspection records for 100 restaurants over 15 months, and totaled up all of the critical violations, or violations that can result in adverse effects to the customers' health.
Denny's had the fewest violations of all ten chains evaluated by Dateline and was the only one to average fewer than one violation per restaurant. Denny's and Waffle House were the only two chains studied that operate chain-wide 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and 365 days a year–an important factor to consider, as generally (many IHOPs operate 24 hours as well), around-the-clock restaurants gather more health code violations. Waffle House ranked the worst of the ten chains examined; Denny's, however, did not seem to be affected by the lack of downtime. Denny's attributes this relative success to its supposed adherence to the principles of HACCP (Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point)—the science of food safety.
[edit] The "Denny's Diner" prototype
In 1998, Denny's reinvented its image and launched Denny's Diner. The "Diner" was a "googie" or Retro-style restaurant, featuring bright red, green, and yellow colors, jukeboxes, lava lamps, retro-style paintings, etc. – The company originally planned to change every Denny's restaurant to Denny's Diner, but financing prohibited it. Eventually, Denny's Diner was merged into the typical Denny's, requiring all locations to have '50s-themed interiors.
[edit] March 2006 Shooting Incidents
On March 15, 2006, a man opened fire in a Denny's in Pismo Beach, California, killing two people and seriously injuring two others. The shooter also died, from a self-inflicted wound. This was the first of three fatal shooting incidents to occur at Southern California Denny's restaurants in consecutive days. In Ontario on March 16, a 37-year-old man was fatally shot in a Denny's parking lot Thursday after a fight. Then a gunman opened fire early March 17 at a Denny's in Anaheim, killing one man and seriously wounding another. [1]
[edit] Ricky Manning Jr. Attack Incident
On April 23, 2006 it was reported that Ricky Manning Jr. was caught in scuffle outside of a Denny's restaurant near the UCLA campus. ESPN reported on their website that "a group of people -- including Manning -- attacked a man in a Denny's restaurant after teasing him for working on a laptop computer." He was charged with assault with a deadly weapon after allegedly fighting a man. He was later released on a bail of $30,000. Other Bruin football players including Maurice Drew were implicated, but were later exonerated.
[edit] Trivia
- New York City, the Lower Hudson Valley, and Long Island have no Denny's. The closest Denny's to New York City is 20 miles (32 km) away in Avenel, New Jersey. This is widely rumored to be a result of pressure from Greek-run diners to keep away a 24/7 business.
- In Hershey, Pennsylvania there is a restaurant called "Dempsey's" which features the same logo and color scheme of the Denny's franchise. Another Dempsey's in nearby Lancaster, Pennsylvania is less than one mile down the street from a Denny's. It changed hands in 2005, and is now Columbia Diner.
- In the 1994 holiday movie The Santa Clause, the characters played by Tim Allen and Eric Lloyd eat at a Denny's restaurant on Christmas Eve after Allen's character singes their home-cooked turkey dinner. He describes the chain as an "American institution", a line which was immediately followed by an interior shot of the restaurant focusing on Japanese diners.
- In an episode of the FOX sketch comedy program In Living Color, actor Chris Rock subtly mentions the affordability of Denny's restaurants after requesting that a waiter about to physically throw him out of a classy dining establishment throw him "towards Denny's."
- A Rush Limbaugh parody commercial features "Reginald Denny's", based on an incident during the 1992 Los Angeles riots. It includes the announcer calling the restaurant "Reginald Lenny's" (before being punched), which was inspired by an elderly customer calling the real chain "Lenny's" in the real commercial.
- Denny's used to offer a free meal to anyone on their birthday. The offer only included a limited number of meal options from special birthday menu. The promotional ritual ceased in 1993, though occasionally individual franchises will continue the tradition.
- In 1994, Buckshot Lefonque recorded an instrumental song called "Breakfast at Denny's" which featured small excerpts from Jay Leno's routine on the early-1990s discrimination incident. "Denny's say that they don't discriminate, but you gotta wonder when that chef's hat is pointed...."
- In the 2000 movie Lucky Numbers, John Travolta's character had a permanently reserved table at a Denny's in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
- In the television series Family Guy, Peter decides to punish his body by eating at Denny's, a reference to its allegedly poor food. In another episode titled Da' Boom, the family establishes a new town after Quahog is destroyed during Y2K. Chris tells the family to build 2 Denny's so they can always eat at the good one.
- Denny's had also operated in Australia in the 1980s, but has long since closed.
- The band Porno With A Plot wrote a song called "Denny's One Night Slam," a song about getting drunk and having sex with someone they met at Denny's.
