Denny's — Restaurant in Pittston Township

Never in my life have I ever stiffed someone on a tip until last night. Denny’s like many diners are 24-hour spots. We even made sure to check upon our arrival— after a long day’s work and a road trip ahead we decided to stop into this Denny’s for a quick meal before hitting the road, convenient as it’s right next to i81 and 476.

Our waitress, a heavier woman with snake bite piercings on her bottom lip walked past and ignored our table several times whilst checking on others. My friend waited 30 minutes for her drink to be refilled- she continued to walk past us avoiding eye contact until we caught her attention. We sat down at exactly 11:15 PM and did not get our food until after 12 AM.

As two young women, who have previously worked as servers we initially presumed she must have thought we were two young ladies that don’t have the money to tip or something. Whatever, that’s fine. We continued to have some of the poorest service I’ve ever had.

All of this would be fine- I’m not expecting fine dining here. Just a grand slam and I can get on my way. The waitress sent a teenager over to take our orders, to which she then yelled from three tables away at my friend for ordering her eggs “dippy”, which is a name regional to Pennsylvania for eggs sunny side up. She said the cook wouldn’t be able to understand. My friends eggs came out scrambled anyways, so it didn’t matter much did it? What a humiliating gesture regardless.

We waited so incredibly long for our food, while there were only two other tables. Clearly had been sitting for a while by the time it came. If the restaurant had been bumping I could truly understand! But all of this together, I could not possibly justify paying for more than just my food.

This woman was yelling across the restaurant the whole time we dined about how to not answer phones, not serve coffee, etc. Absolutely horrific personality to be working as wait staff. The final straw for me was yelling at my nothing but kind and polite friend over some eggs.

My friend had a three hour drive ahead of her and we should not have waited that long to be humiliated and given lukewarm meals. Normally I’d tip a minimum 15% even for poor service. Working hospitality is hard, hard work and I understand that from firsthand experience. I was ready to tip 50% of what we just paid, I usually tip big on smaller bills. My immediate family has tipped huge here every time they’ve eaten too, we know you are working hard. But this lady was...

Positives: order taken quickly, food arrived timely, correctly & done properly.

Negatives: Their hostess seems confused & out of sync. No busers for the tables, so we waited longer than we should have as no tables had been cleaned. And we've seen this before on previous visits.

We waited about 10-15 minutes for a table & a party of 3 left because of pointless wait.

Overall, not a bad experience - but they definitely need to get the hostess / seating system squared away. Management - That's your bottleneck. Fix this & things will improve we believe.

Side note: odd interaction with the manager on duty. Friendly enough, but he didn't introduce himself so we were wondering at first who this individual was. Also, the floors were mopped in the middle of lunch service; Didn't seem like it was needed. Done nicely, but lots of older folks coming / going & we were waiting for a wipe out.....

Updated review for 12 August 17:

Changed my review from 3 to 5 stars.

Seems that the bottle neck was resolved & this visit was a great improvement. Well done folks!! The general manager was visible & out on the floor keeping things flowing smoothly. Briefly introduced himself, asked how the meal service was going & them moved on; perfect interaction in my book.

Wait staff was taking good care of the Tables, which were bused quickly when ppl left them. This kept the diners moving and the pace seemed much less chaotic!

This was the last chance we were going to give this location. The Wilkes Barre store was further away, and we ALMOST went there instead - as we didn't want to have a silly & pointless wait at Pittston (that we figured we'd have). Happy to report that I'm glad we gave Pittston another chance.

Keep up...

I made sure to come here for opening day. When I saw them building I was excited as this one is much more local to me than the Wilkes-Barre building.

So day 1, okay maybe it wasn't flawless, but for all the new hires they did a pretty bang up job. Food was good, not great, but at this place matures it will get better and I will update my review accordingly.

The interior and exterior is fantastic. THIS is what a Denny's should look like. The outside fountain is beautiful and the inside even has a waterfall. Some TV's are sort of randomly placed around as well, I'd say they are a bit small for the place though. Also there's one particular seat (coincidentally where we sat) where the server does not have direct line of sight with us so she keeps peeking around the wall to see how we're doing. It's humorous if not borderline creepy to see a face just pop out of nowhere and look at you briefly.

Despite all my nitpicking I will certainly be back. As a night owl I need more places like this. Thanks Denny's!

Edit: Unfortunately I'm downgrading this to a two star. I've since ordered 4 times since my original review. I have yet to get a correct order. Something is always incorrect. The biggest mishap so far was ordering a "to-go" frenchtoast slam" and I got pancakes with eggs. What?

The waitresses also INSIST that the Frenchtoast slam does NOT come with sausage, despite clearly stating sausage on the menu. They always try to change me extra and then it's a back and forth until I say screw it.

It seems the workers got comfortable REAL quick in their shiny new building. It's a shame because I wanted nothing to do with the Wilkes-Barre Denny's but at least I get my food the way I ordered...