Denny's — Restaurant in Plant City

I visited Denny’s tonight with my sister, her husband, and her three children. We walked into the restaurant, were seated, and spoke to the waitress by 9:50. We asked if she could go ahead and take the children’s order as it was getting close to 10, which is when the kids eat free promotional ends. The waitress refused and assured us that she would be able to put it in even if it was after 10. My sister asked the waitress to check with her manager to make sure. The waitress agreed and left; she returned 10 minutes later and assured us again that we would be able to get the children’s meals free. By then it was about 10:15. We put in our order and settled down to wait. 10 minutes later, the waitress came to our table and sheepishly stated that she would be unable to honor the promotion. My sister asked why her manager had told her otherwise, which is when the waitress admitted she did not speak with her manager. My sister asked the waitress to check with her manager to see if there was anything that could be done. The manager then appeared and stated unequivocally that her hands were tied, even as our orders were being set out on the counter. We were eventually forced to leave, even though we were there well before 10 and tried repeatedly to order by the cutoff time. As a customer service worker myself, I can say it was badly done. The manager made no attempt to make restitution or make any real apology, only to say she had no choice. After over a decade in customer service, I can say there is always a choice if you are willing to go to the time and trouble to...

Always a pleasure eating at Denny's. No skimping on the portions here.

Update: This visit on 4/29/24 had a little different feel to it. It was a slower kind of feeling, and something was a little off. Come to find out the restaurant was functioning with just one server. I kept hearing how other servers had either called out or just did not show up, and nobody was willing to come in. The restaurant was not busy, only 5 to 6 tables were being serviced, and the server was able to keep up with the demand. She was able to come around a couple of times to check on us and top off our coffees. None of the qualities had suffered but I felt felt compassion for the server. There were several pick up and take out orders which the shift manager was taking care of but Lunch time was approaching and I hoped they would be able to take care of service.

I have been patronizing Denny's for 50 plus years now. If I did not have that kind of exposure and history I might not have noticed that the energy level was low, plus mothers day is less than two weeks away and there was no signage advertising specials or suggestion to come visit for mother's day lunch or dinner.

I would hate to see this Denny's suffer from the lack of workers who do not want to work in the hospitality industry but it might come some day.

But not today, our server did the very best job she could and took good care of customers. My wife and I really appreciated the effort we were shown in order to keep our Denny's visit pleasant.

And remember, tip your server...

Went in at 11:25am with 4 adults and 2 children. Everything was great at first. Waitress was nice. They took our order and that is where it went haywire. We finally left at 1:15pm...other customer that were seated a half hour after us were getting their meals...when our order came out it was completely wrong...missing items...receiving items we did not order...a fiasco...I had been watching the food window around the 1 hour mark and a waitress turns around looks at me and rather aggressively says "you need something"...there was another customer who ordered Buffalo wings to go and had been waiting quite a bit of time too. When a waitress told the kitchen they needed them right away a cook responded "they'll be up when there up"....our waitress was absolutely humiliated and I felt so bad for her. We received our meal as I stared all wrong and under cooked sausage still pink in the middle...they said they were getting the manager but they never showed so we opted to leave..to add insult to injury the snot nosed hostess was completely rude...word of advise little miss hostess..when you s rew up a meal as bad as ours was...don't be snotty to the paying customer...so in closing...we still tipped our waitress who was mortified and left...hey dennys...this isn't rocket science...get it together seriously. And that manager should be fired to allow...