Denny's Swansea — Restaurant in Wales

This review is based solely on my one visit today at 3pm. I'm a mystery diner for marketforce, but this was not an assignment. For a flagship location, being the first in the UK, it was all a little underwhelming based on what I have experienced in the states and I'm summising the downfall was one thing, skimping on payroll. I saw one team member running around. We weren't welcomed warmly, but this was because she was in the middle of taking food outside. We hung around and then she seated us as soon as she could. There were two other tables at that time. She was polite but not really attentive (she's a one woman band so, you know, doing what she can) no check backs were made. Drinks were great but no soft drinks were available when ordering and half of our party wanted soft drinks. If the soda machine is down regularly maybe have some backup same brand cans from nearby aldi and serve on ice? Food was brought out at different times for a table of six people and one order was wrong (pancakes) and had not arrived after all six people ate meals so was requested to take away. Burgers were great, chips were warm and hollow, waffles were great, hash browns were raw. We had to ask for cutlery after 3 meals had been brought over. The place was clean. It was 50p to add ketchup to a burger but ketchup was readily available on the table. Atmosphere was dead and I guess ordering through a barcode contributes to that bad vibe. No doubt it works well for some but it takes away that attentive host table service vibe you get in the states.The barcodes don't work on 5 out of 6 phones as the Denny's app required a older phone to work (my phone's 2 years old). The menu is heavily reduced and was just a laminated piece of paper like a seaside cafe, not really fitting the brand and level of detail spent on the fit out, again, cost saving. If we returned at a busier time things may be better. Reading other reviews (some unnecessarily rude and harsh) I see some travel from afar to specifically visit Denny's. We came for a holiday, but if we had travelled just to get a taste of the states it would have been a great shame. Owners of this franchise should do some event activations, use mystery shoppers, review schedules, look after and retain the team, set some expectations with managers for time from order to table, like an SLA almost. Revisit your...

I ordered Slow-cooked Pot roast having been impressed by the imagery, however was then immediately old there was no meat and so it was out of stock - disappointed I opted then for the vaguely descriptive fish and chips - this arrived and looked very appealing however sadly it looked as if the 'chef' had broken the salt and pepper shaker and just tipped it straight on - there was very little chips on show through the seasoning - as a result this had to be returned after an initial tasteing.

Weirdly, when the new fish and chips arrived - the fish tasted completely different to the last one - therefore explaining the non-descriptive fish & chips label.

I then ordered a childrens spagetti meal and thought it odd that i had to pay extra to have meat in it - spagetti and sauce on it's own surely isn't a balanced meal. I then asked for a side of mash to go with it and explained that it needed to contain no dairy only to be told this isn't possible - and when i asked if it was made fresh was informed that infact it isn't and mash could not be made - therefore there was no suitable dinner side for my 1 year old dairy intolerant child.

After the dinner was complete, I asked for 1 x child portion of ice-cream and 1 x child portion of a ice-cream sundae (when prompted i asked for no sweets/cream on it) - when both arrived to my amazement both looked identical - one scoop of ice-cream in a small ramakin dish - when i asked where the sundae was, apparently the only difference between one and the other is the sweet on the top of a single scoop.

At the end of the evening, I think a manager apologised for the seasoning issue noteing it wasn't right and took 2 x ice-creams off the bill which totalled £46.91 for the pleasure of my family eating seperately and incompletely.

Sadly however, we will not be returning after such a poor poor experience.

I have attached an image of the ice-cream and the sundae and labelled them so others don't...

I have heard from many friends that the waiting in this diner was the one thing that put them off. What you've got to realise is that it is the first and only Denny's in the entire UK. It is brand new with at the time of writing this only being open for just over a month. You're going to get big waiting times as it is a place that everyone wants to go to. I had no issues with waiting times. Infact, it was some of the quickest service i've ever had! We were a group of 3 adults and 3 children.

We entered Denny's and we were greated by the most friendliest staff ever. It was amazing and I would like to give a special thanks to Ceri who was amazing with the children!! We got told that there was going to be a 10 minute waiting time as they were clearing the booth, but we only ended up waiting around 5 minutes.

We sat down and were handed some pictures for the kids to colour in whilst the rest of us could very difficulty decide what we wanted to eat as there is soooooo much amazing food there! Absolutely spoilt for choice and will definetly be going back!!! I had the Prime Rib Philly Melt which was sooo good that I could eat 10 of them. I'm always a lover of refillable drinks so for £2.49 for the refills i reckon is a pretty good price. My girlfriend had one of the breakfasts which she loved. The pancakes were amazing and i've had my fair share of pancakes to say that. Better make sure your pour loads of maple syrup over those beasts because it's just wrong to not do so! I recommend everyone to go to Denny's with an open mind and ignore what people say about the waiting time issues. You're obviously going to get waiting as it's such a new place, just like you do with any new attraction.

Thank you again to Ceri and to Tasha (Our server) for making our first visit to this place truely wondeful. WE WILL...