Denny's Restaurant — Restaurant in Calgary

Two weeks ago, I gave a glowing review of this place, which drew a thanks from the manager, and multiple return trips by me. Unfortunately, in the early morning of Tue 5 August, I went to use the washroom urinal, and the kitchen dishwashing worker completed using the toilet, walked out of the stall, said Hello to me, and WALKED STRAIGHT OUT WITHOUT WASHING HIS HANDS.

I was flabbergasted, and immediately followed him out to stop him. He was already in the kitchen, so I told the hostess what he had done. We know and respect each other from my repeat business, and she was very apologetic. She said she would have the manager talk to the kitchen worker. I returned to the washroom, used the urinal, washed my hands as always by habit, and then returned to my table.

I could not order anything, and did not want to stay there any more. I told my server I would be leaving. She asked if I would write a note for the manager, as the kitchen worker was denying he walked out of the toilet without washing his hands. So I wrote a lengthy note about the dangers of E.Coli. and that even if he washed his hands in the kitchen when he got there, he was still supposed to wash his hands in the bathroom before leaving. Especially since he is the one whose job is to make clean dishes and cutlery available to customers to eat from.

I could hear him telling the supervisor that I was lying, and that he had washed his hands. So I decided to make a complaint to Alberta Health Services Public Health Restaurant Inspectors. I explained why I had to do this in my note to the manager, because I am a professional engineer, and Rule 1 in my Code of Conduct is to, hold paramount the health, safety and welfare of the public. He is supposed to oversee bleach concentrations, temperatures, multiple sinks, etc... but won't even wash his hands after a poop?

It is now Sun 10 August and I still have not heard from the manager. I left my business card and left a nice but factual letter. Instead of reaching out to regain my trust, or to do damage control, they sulked.

And failed the resulting inspection despite my advance warning. You can see from 7 August 2025 for Denny's 7775 in CALGARY - NE that Four (4) violations were found, of which 2 were Critical (unsafe temperature) and 2 Require Followup (broken equipment).

Never going...

The worst service or care. Our fries came cold. It's a 24 hr place. But they told my son as I went to bathroom that they were closing at 3 am. Then came up to me after at TBL telling me we had to leave as they were closing to do carpet wash. I asked couldn't we go to other side. She replied nope. Yet was greeting and seating new customers whom came in. Our food was cold and incorrect. The pop is bottomless but only if they comeback to TBL to refill. When I asked for the seasoned fries extra after they brought cold not seasoned. When asked to replaceshe said extra $. Then came with in a paper bag asking us to leave. I was confused as we were not bothering. And others were being seated. But when asked to speak to management. I was told she was for now. Since when is that a correct response. Even after I politely mentioned our lack of her service. She repliedyou could have waved me down. Maam i tried with that whole 1 more tbl in store. Still unsuccessful. I've not been so embarrassed or feeling of neglect and beneath the class of themselves. The waitresses and so on. Appolling in fact. Brought tears To my mother's and sisters eyes as we go left. We had to ask to wait for buses to be on. Or it was to the curb. When we paid as anyone else. If not more. But were treated with ignorance and cruelty. No thought of someone's feelings or any such thought. I would not recommend. Brown stuff running down our plates towards our food. Not grease. Not our pops. Came this...

Service was decent but that's about the only good thing. We got two starters to share, the mozzarella sticks and the loaded nachos. Both dishes were sub-par. The nachos were cheap and broke easily and generally didn't taste that good. The nachos also sat on a bed of chilli-soup, which also wasn't that good, it tasted like canned chilli. The mozzarella sticks were doughy and overall not very good, tasted like they were frozen, then microwaved, then tossed in the deep fryer for less than five minutes. With service, we waited about 5 minutes, which is usual, before being asked about drinks. Not sure how long it was before our server came back to ask about food but it felt like a while. On top of that, when we were served our food our drinks were already empty but our server didn't say anything or get us new drinks. Got our drinks finally but it almost seemed like our server didn't really care. During our visit, our server came to our table a total of four times over almost 45 minutes, not counting when we asked for our bill. Saw the hostess sitting with a table at one point for quite a while (probably a meeting?) The overall atmosphere was pretty bland and the place was pretty empty, that being said we were...