Denny's — Restaurant in Pontoon Beach

I stopped by this restaurant on my way home to Chicago after camping in the Ozarks. I eat at various Denny's restaurants around the country pretty often and, after a long weekend of camping fare, I was looking forward to sitting down to a good old Denny's sirloin steak. So that's what I ordered. The food itself was fine. That's what I like about big chain diners: if you frequent one, you pretty much know what you're going to get wherever you go.

Now about the service - and particularly the management at this location on this day (Labor Day 2022).

The restaurant was pretty busy and there was only one server on duty. It took forever for my food to arrive. I mean, I get it; with Covid, everyone's shorthanded.

At first, I was pretty ticked off at my server but, as I watched what was happening, I realized my frustration was directed at the wrong person. I saw the manager kept seating more and more new customers without pitching in to help that server. At one point, I saw 9 tables filled with people.

To make it worse, after watching the server try to keep up with everything with a smile on her face, the manager began dressing her down right at the check out counter. She wasn't yelling at her but I couldn't believe it. Instead of helping the server out and taking a table or running food, the manager told the server she wasn't doing a good job and everything that was going wrong was the server's fault. I was livid.

I hope that little server (who was absolutely busting her backside) finds a better job elsewhere where her hard work will be...

This Denny's is so bad. THE WORST. So I ordered the avocado bacon burrito. And the waitress doesn't tell me that they are out of avocado until twenty minutes after I put my order in. Needless to say I was starving by that point, so I told her to just give it to me. So I ate the dry burrito with only eggs and bacon with no cheese or anything. Then I decided to order dessert. I WAITED HALF AN HOUR TO ORDER THE DAMN THING AND THEN IT TOOK ANOTHER HALF AN HOUR TO GET IT. Before the inattentive waitress brought it out I asked her if I could get my bill as she was walking by, HALF AN HOUR AFTER I ORDERED THE DESSERT, she then replies "I'm working on your dessert right now. Which she was clearly not. Well she goes into the kitchen yelling wheres the Dessert... and she walks around the dining room and doesn't bother to ask if I still wanted the dessert or anything. Well she brings out the dessert and explains that the cook didn't get the ticket. MAYBE SHE DOESN'T REALIZE THAT ITS HER RESPONSIBILITY TO MAKE SURE THE CUSTOMER GETS THEIR ORDER. If you are reading this Im sure you get the point. DO NOT GO HERE. And also it was really slow in the restaurant and she did not have an excuse to be inattentive .. . . she had like 3 tables thats nothing they dont even serve alcohol so she doesnt have to worry about having to get stuff from a bar. I used to be a waiter and i have never seen such BAD service. It was horrible. Ugh go elsewhere trust me the service is unfriendly, Inattentive and...

Soooo much wrong with this place. Got here and asked to sit at the counter so the hostess who is clearly overworked doesn’t have to spend her time on me. I’ve done this at Denny’s all over the country with no problem. She says no. I have to wait. Almost 10 minutes later she hands me a menu and tells me I can go sit down at the counter. Takes about another 10 minutes to get my drink order and order my grilled chicken Cobb salad. Almost 45 minutes later the server tell me “it’s gonna be a minute because they’re backed up” I tell her to cancel the order. I ended up getting some meatloaf from the Flying J Deli counter. As a truck driver my time is valuable. What should have been a quick meal turned into a 2 hour break. I try never to throw the race card around because I truly don’t see color bug I saw people that got there after me getting treated quicker. I’m not trying to be or much less claiming to be a victim but I can see where other people may get that idea from being in the same situation I was in. I’m not gonna give into that and chalk this up to the staff being overworked. But someone else may see this differently. If you want to wait an hour for a salad that may never come this is the place for you. Picture is my duty status clock. You can see that I have been off duty almost an hour and a half. I went off duty then went inside to...