Denny's — Restaurant in Ruidoso Downs

TLDR: not a pleasant experience Allow me a moment of your time readers, prospective patrons, and breakfast enthusiasts...

To provide context, myself and my friends have a collective few years in the service industry and we have just experienced one of the most unsavory 3 hours in our entire vacation.

To begin there was a line of waiting with various families present and no employee to greet or take our names for the waitlist. Rather, there was clipboard on the counter and a pen.

Understandable in hindsight since it seemed to be understaffed.

After maybe a 30-40 minute wait, we were sent to our table and given a stack of menu. Drink and food order taken, 30 minutes pass. Sodas arrive flat, water fine and shakes fine. 30 more minutes pass and the first appetizer arrives no plates or napkins. After enough sitting and messy hands, we get up to ask the other waitress for napkins. Our server returns and apologizes claiming he was only server up until that moment. No shame in giving an explanation though we are aware of the value of teamwork, and that did not seem to be present from the get go.

Finally food arrives along with another apology and an offer for discount. Food was cold, sizzling skillet did not sizzle, no utensils, no syrup, no sides, and no requested sauces. Got up another time to ask after a brief few minutes, only to be told I am giving a “passive aggressive vibe.”

At this point it we noticed no refills have been offered, silverware was dirty, and food lost flavors a few bites in.

The fourth apology came in and after a talkwith the manager, another discount offered and free desert was provided. Finally we leave to pay and the order split was wrong, the manager verbally told off the server while in front of us. Many more apologies given at the end though the damage was done. Our server Marshall was by no means rude, just unprepared. Management seemed amicable enough though could be the reasoning it was understaffed given the past reviews. Not necessarily going to return in the near future. Would give 0/5...

Abysmal, apathetic service with food that wasn't much better. I asked for sweet tea, server brought unsweet tea that looked like it was dipped from a puddle. When I asked her to take it back and bring me SWEET tea, she said "yeah...we ran out of sweet tea, you'll just have to use the sweetener there on the table." then walks away...

She then comes back to take our order. I told her I wanted the chicken, biscuit, & gravy bowl with over easy eggs. My husband ordered the lumberjack slam. Both exactly off the menu, no special requests. Although we were the only customers in the restaurant, it takes over 35 minutes to arrive. Server returns with a plate (A FREAKING PLATE!) and says here's your biscuit bowl...ummm NO?!?!? 1. That's not a bowl 2. That's not what I ordered. As I'm telling her that the sad biscuit with gravy and over hard eggs are not what I wanted, the cook hollers at her that he forgot something. So she walks away and comes back with a greasy, crumbled up sausage link on a saucer and says "here. He forgot to put this in your gravy." 🤢 I told her that I ordered something entirely different and no I didn't want that sausage. She just said "oh. Well do you want something else?" Really? After this display of ineptitude and waste of time? Probably not. But I'd like a coke at least to drink. She brought the coke and disappeared. We finally went to the register to pay, and some other employee asked how everything was. I told him it was awful. He said he was sorry but never showed us our check. When we got our receipt, we ended up paying for the tea, a coke, both meals, and a milk.

Tried to contact management via website, but I doubt my complaint will reach the correct person.

Thanks for...

I was just browsing looking for the hours. It says twenty four hours but I can't get through on the phone to confirm. I tried calling late last night and no answer. But I just want to say somebody mentioned that the service was slow and the planning was bad at the restaurant and they waited fifteen minutes for a table but that is pretty standard in this area - especially at one of the busiest times of the year. Considering wait times at other restaurants may be over an hour I think Julian's recent comment was petty. Also fyi in all restaurants here are not paid the minimum wage. You are going to get what you pay for. Anybody should be grateful for any service whatsoever from any waitress, they work very hard and barely make any money. It's not a matter of planning. Also a lot of people lost their homes in this community and many of the workers had to move away or have been displaced so before people put comments like this, they should think about all of the hardships a lot of the staff/workers have gone through in this community in recent months. A 15 minute wait at the busiest time of the year is really pretty trivial. I don't know how many restaurants Julian has been to, but apparently they haven't ever had to wait for a table and usually the restaurants where you do not wait the food is not so good - so it's a paradox. It is a shame that we cannot get through on the telephone. But again, I do not blame the management it is just they probably may not even be aware of it because it seems like they have a new kind of phone system. And after all of the problems with the flooding right at their doorstep I am glad they're even in business at...