The Greasy History Of Denny's

For countless fans across the country, Denny's is the ultimate diner experience, with its loaded pancakes, its melts and sandwiches, and, of course, its Grand Slam lineup, all served 24-7. But Denny's wasn't always the all-night, all-American experience it is today. Once upon a time, Denny's was a humble donut shop with an identity crisis, and it was only through a series of unrelated moves that the big yellow sign we know and love came into its own. So today, we're knocking one out of the park with the Grand Slam history of Denny's. But before we get started, be sure to subscribe to the Weird History Food channel, and let us know in the comments below what other diner chains you would like to hear about. Okay, batter up! Way back in 1953, Harold Butler and his business partner, Richard Jezik, opened up Denny's Donuts in Lakewood, California. You may be wondering, how did Harold and Richard settle on Denny's for a name? Well, it was totally random. Neither man was called Danny or had any close friends or family members named Danny, they chose it simply because it was a popular name at the time. Regardless, the duo's donut shop found quick success, and the two were able to grow it to a whopping six-store chain over just two years. But in 1955, Jezik wanted to be closer to his family, and he left Denny's behind, leaving Butler to fend for himself. When, shortly thereafter, one of the locations began to see a decline in sales, Butler decided to change up its menu. He introduced burgers to all locations and increased their operating hours to be round the clock, 24-7, 365 days per year, for those late-night hamburger emergencies. Things picked up once again for Butler's burgeoning empire, and the very next year, with the opening of the eighth Danny's location, Butler changed the Danny's name to, drumroll please, Danny's Coffee Shop. He felt the new moniker better reflected the growing list of menu items offered by his chain, which it kind of does? It still sounds like you only sell one thing, Harold. Either way, the new name didn't last. Turns out Butler's decision created some confusion in the Los Angeles area. There was already a coffee shop chain called Coffee Dan's, and customers were having a hard time telling the two apart. And so finally, a single beam of light pierced the clouds to illuminate Butler as he changed Danny's to Denny's, establishing Denny's Coffee Shops in 1959. Then, just two years later, in 1961, Harold dropped the Coffee Shops from the Denny's. With its newfound identity, Denny's trucked on into the 1960s. Using a boomerang-shaped blueprint designed by Los Angeles architects Armet and Davis, Denny's restaurants expanded nationwide and brought with them Googie architecture, a style known for upswept roofs and space-age vibes, you know, like you used to see on old cartoons all the time. Soon, both diners and motels all across America adopted the Googie aesthetic, in large part thanks to Denny's expansion into areas that had never before seen the style. Then, in 1967, the chain went international, with its first-ever outside-the-US restaurant opening up in Acapulco, Mexico. The very next year, Denny's went public and began trading on the New York Stock Exchange, where its share price soared right out the gate. For a time, Denny's seemed unstoppable, but all of that nearly came crashing down in 1971, when the brand underwent its first big shake-up as an international publicly-traded company. It was that year that Harold Butler, still at the company's head, attempted to buy the then-parent company of Vegas' top destination spot, Caesars Palace. As he would soon find out, it would've been better to stick to the pancake house. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission caught wind of this deal, along with allegations that Butler was illegally sweetening the pot for certain shareholders of the company if they were to sell their shares to him, and they stepped in to put a stop to it. The deal fell through and, with Butler's public image decimated, Denny's once-enviable stock plummeted. Butler's personal shares, which had previously been worth around $80 million, were then only worth $3 million, and he, in turn, stepped down from his place as chairman of the company. While Butler would go on to work with Winchell's Donuts, Noggles, and JoJo's, the Denny's brand would have to carry on without him. Someone, somewhere, gently sang Moons Over Miami to the tune of Moon Over Miami. In 1977, Denny's introduced their first-ever Grand Slam breakfast exclusively to customers in the Atlanta area. The meal was named in honor of baseball legend Hank Aaron, who played for the Atlanta Braves. Just three years earlier, Hank had broken Babe Ruth's longstanding record of 714 career home runs, and he'd become a hero to both Atlantans and Braves fans alike. The breakfast he inspired was a home run among customers, and Denny's soon started selling it everywhere. The company continued to expand into the 1980s, with their 1,000th location opening up in 1981. By then, they had a presence in all 50 states and had likewise expanded into both Canada and Japan. And when the popular restaurant chain Sambo's, which had over 1,000 locations heading into the 1980s, filed for bankruptcy in 1981, Denny's swooped in and bought up many of their closing locations. They wiped away the Sambo's branding entirely and turned these locations into full-time Denny's restaurants. Shortly after, only two Sambo's locations remained, the last of which changed its name to Chad's in 2020. Later in the decade, in 1988, Denny's attempted the unthinkable. They decided to close down all but six restaurant locations for Christmas Day in order to give their employees a much-needed break. It was the first time in well over 20 years that Denny's would take a day off, and Christmas just so happens to be among their busiest days. It's the day all the divorced dads show up after burning the turkey. This one-day break was projected to cost $5 million in lost revenue. Even so, Denny's was determined to give their more than 60,000 restaurant employees a day off. The only problem? Many locations, having never closed their doors once, hadn't bothered installing locks. Meanwhile, these locations that did have locks had never once used their keys. So, you know those things were long gone. Ultimately, more than 700 Denny's locations had to have their locks either freshly installed or entirely replaced, making the day off a much costlier and far more chaotic gesture than they expected. Which sort of sounds like eating at Denny's. Then, just a couple years later, Denny's would encounter a far more serious problem. In the early 90s, many black customers, feeling that they had experienced discrimination at Denny's locations due to their race, filed two class-action lawsuits against the corporation. In one of these lawsuits, the plaintiffs argued that locations had been ejecting black customers, segregating black from white customers, fusing racial epithets, failing to honor advertised specials for black customers, and trying to limit the number of black customers in a restaurant at any one time. Denny's ended up settling for a whopping $54 million, and thousands of black Americans who'd taken part in the lawsuits received what was at the time the largest ever payout for a violation of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. After the settlement, Denny's went on the defense. They began donating to black organizations by the hundreds of thousands, they increased the number of black models and actors used in their advertising, and they hired a bunch of undercover diners to eat at Denny's restaurants and document any discrimination they might encounter. Meanwhile, in 1994, Denny's became among the largest sponsors of the Save the Children charity, an organization that provides children around the world with better healthcare and increased economic and educational opportunities. Also, plenty of Through these changes in their business practices, Denny's was quickly able to turn around their brand's image, earning themselves the number one business for minorities in Fortune Magazine's Year 2000 rankings. In 1997, Denny's introduced their first ever Denny's Classic Diner location in Fort Myers, Florida. This location was a throwback to the 1950s-era diners, and people liked the concept so much that they've since grown the Classic Diner brand to encompass nearly 50 locations across the U.S. In the new millennium, Dateline NBC ran a 2004 Dirty Dining Exposé on 10 of the top casual dining chains in America. Keep watching, this story doesn't end the way you might think. The list of restaurants investigated, including big names like Chili's, Red Lobster, Waffle House, and Denny's. In the end, Denny's fared the best and had the fewest health code violations of all the restaurants, a feat they attribute to their strict adherence to HACCP principles, officially making Denny's the cleanest, greasiest food to ever smother some hash browns. In 2009, Denny's ran a Super Bowl commercial that promised free grand slams for everyone on the Tuesday following the big game. While Denny's is known for giving its aging customers free grand slams on their birthdays, the rush created by this particular promotion proved to be far bigger than anything they anticipated. Denny's ultimately gave away over two million grand slams on that one single Tuesday, a cost that was somewhat mitigated by sales of both coffee and juice, as well as the increased brand loyalty that came with giving away so many free breakfasts. The following year, Denny's saw rapid expansion, as the brand partnered up with all-new Flying J locations to create combination gas station restaurants for truckers and vacationers alike, and anyone who refuses to stop at Cracker Barrel. And just one year after that, Denny's began working with No Kid Hungry, a charity organization that helps feed kids across America. The company has since raised over $12 million for the charity, allowing them to provide well over 100 million meals for kids in need. Then in 2012, Denny's created another grand slam success when they introduced a menu inspired by the Lord of the Rings prequel, The Hobbit, An Unexpected Journey. This Hobbit-themed menu featured everything from Frodo's pot roast skillet to the unfortunately named Hobbit Slam to the even worse named Hobbit Hole Breakfast. Those could have used a few more minutes in the forges of Mordor. The Hobbit-themed menu was such a hit that, for the following year's release of The Desolation of Smaug, Denny's brought it back and expanded it, including this second-time all-new items like Bilbo's Breakfast Feast and Smaug's Fire Burger. For those looking to go on an unexpected journey out of the Hobbit Hole and get a little fancier with your Denny's selection, you may have missed your chance. For a brief period, from 2014 to 2018, a Denny's opened up in New York's Financial District. As a bit of a joke, they had on their menu the Grand Crew Slam, a grand slam breakfast that catered to the Financial District's upscale clientele. It came with two Grand Slam Breakfasts along with a bottle of Dom Perignon Premier Crew and a $300 price tag. They ended up selling about one of these fancy Grand Crew Slams per week, mostly to tourists who were comfortable spending $300 on ironies. Today, Denny's has over 1,500 locations worldwide. These locations are in all 50 states and about a dozen different countries, including one location in the UK, a handful in the Philippines, the UAE, and New Zealand, and a bunch scattered around both Central America and the Caribbean. What's more, in more recent years, Denny's has partnered with the Humane Society to ensure their food sourcing prioritizes animal welfare, as much as a place that deals in bacon and eggs can, anyway. For example, in 2012, the company announced that they would no longer source their bacon and sausage from farms that keep their pigs in gestation crates. Then, in 2016, Denny's announced that would fully make the switch to eggs exclusively from cage-free chickens by 2026. Despite these changes, though, Denny's and its 24-hour diner culture has had a rough go at it since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. While they introduced online ordering back in 2017, they struggled to keep customers coming back during peak pandemic fear. They also had to close down many of their locations for the first time since the 1988 fiasco, and almost half of those locations refused to return to the 24-7 schedule that was the norm before lockdowns. In 2021, the company launched two virtual brands, The Meltdown and The Burger Den, to make up for lost revenue, but it seems that they continue to struggle in the post-pandemic period. In 2023 alone, they had to close down 57 restaurants for good, a move that current CFO blames squarely on inflation. But don't despair, there's hope for Denny's yet. Those 57 closures may be balanced out by 30 new planned openings for 2024. The company is likewise leaning harder into pickup and delivery options than ever before, and they're even testing another all-new virtual brand called Banda Burrito in select California markets. Still, with many businesses still struggling in the wake of COVID, only time will tell whether Denny's will hit another grand slam or finally strike out. What do you think? Are you a Denny's fan, or is another breakfast spot number one in your heart? Let us know in the comments below, and while you're at it, check out some of these other weird history food videos.