Denny's — Restaurant in Sacramento

I don't know whether it was bad luck today or if this place is severely understaffed or mismanaged. Let me preface this by saying I've been here before, but I don't come here often. I come here every so often when I've just cycled through all of the other restaurants/fast food joints in my area. I visited here alone on a Thursday evening, coming home from school. I was seated relatively quickly but I noticed that a large family was just wrapping up their meal. I already knew what I want, and so I had the menu sprawled out in front of me on the page that I wanted to order. It was taking a while for my server to come back to check in, so I marked the time on my watch, checked my phone a few times over and eventually just resorted to playing Mario Kart on my Switch.

Over the course of the next 40 minutes, I watched them cater to everyone around me including bussing the large family table. I was visibly in the middle of some Time Trials when my server finally asked me if I had made up my mind. Perhaps I'm just invisible when I'm gaming, but I thought nothing of it as I told him my simple order, an appetizer sampler and some water. I was going to try whatever new variant of hush puppies they had for dessert, but it had taken so long and I was so hungry and thirsty (my server hadn't asked me for drinks at the get go) that I completely forgot about it. 15 minutes later, my long-awaited finger food comes, but my server didn't ask me what kind of sauce I wanted, nor did he give me napkins. I asked for barbeque sauce as he left, and he gave it to me a minute later, which is one of the few commendable things I have to say about this experience.

Brushing my hands off my shorts, I sit here now, food finished, waiting for any staff to interact with me at this point. Nobody refilled my water, checked in on how I was doing, gave me my check up until this point, and I've spent the past 10 minutes or so (probably more) typing this up on my phone. A table right next to me lays vacant, yet still contains the remnants of the last person who had a meal there who had left about 30 minutes ago. If it weren't for the security cameras, I feel so incognito I could probably slip away without paying if I tried. I'm an honest man though.

Sure, sure, maybe it's on me to flag down folks to help me. As I'm typing this I'm tempted to stand up and call out across the room "Check please!" But the other part of me is too bemused at how abysmal this service is and how much worse can it truly get. I notice another server brings another party a meal across from me. I notice the other party seems to be getting pretty standard service. Perhaps don't go here alone with things to keep you occupied?

The time is now an hour and 30 minutes since I marked the time on my watch. I'll still give these gentlemen a tip, because life's too short to dwell on these sorts of things, and people all want to make a living in this world. The other server checks in on me, and I request my meager check, which barely totaled the double digits. I write a note, mentioning this review and my sympathies, and tuck it beneath my 50% tip of my cheap meal.

Hopefully it helps counterbalance publicizing this train wreck of a visit--and the sink's overflowing.

Someone help these souls.

Edit: As I quietly pay my check at the register, the transaction is quick, but in the brief moment I look in the eyes of the staff member who attended to me, there was a real sense of thankfulness in them for my patience. T'was my pleasure, take what you can...

We had just gotten into Sacramento after a long day of flying. It was 10:30pm. We didn't have enough time to grab something to eat in Denver because we were late getting to our connecting flight due to weather on our first flight. We were tired and starving! When we were seated, there was one large group and two other small groups in the restaurant. The waitress quickly took our order and then we waited, and waited, and waited. 45 minutes later our waitress came over and said our food should be up soon, but there were a couple of orders ahead of ours. There was no one else in the restaurant so we asked what orders they were. She said they had a bunch of doordash/grubhub type orders. I complained. She told us the cooks were new and slow. I told her it was just breakfast items, how hard is that to make quickly? We ordered eggs, bacon, hashbrowns, French toast. We then told her it would have been nice if they would have told us they were behind. After that, anyone that came in were told that it would be at least 45 minutes before they would get there food. Everyone left. When our food finally started coming out, they brought us two plates of pancakes. Neither one of us ordered pancakes. The food was OK, nothing to write home about. It was the lack of caring at all by the staff that made me the most dissatisfied. At least be honest if your behind. There was no urgency by the manager to the kitchen staff. If you are behind, you need to motivate your staff to catch up. If you can't accomplish in-restaurant orders and doordash/ubereats orders at the same time, maybe its time to re-imagine your business strategies. The manager never offered to at least discount our meal for the inconvenience, nothing. Most Dennys I have been in are predictable. The food is not exactly the greatest in the world, but it works. We will not be going back to...

Visited on Thanksgiving Day, ate at the restaurant. I understand it was holiday, nobody likes to work on Thanksgiving or Christmas, and it's common sense to know that they would be short staffed, so being patient and considerate will only make your dining experience that much better for yourself and others around you. But, I will be honest, the food was below mediocre, even for Denny's. I ordered outside of my "norm", and went with the chicken tenders dinner, included two sides and garlic bread. The baked Mac n cheese looked soooo good so I made it both of my sides. What I was served was not even close to being easy Mac or Velveeta proceed microwave blah.. the top had been flipped upside down to hide where it had been scorched or where the bottom of the pan had been scraped to make two helpings. The smothered thick cheese was not good to look at little alone, had the cheese in a can taste to it. The chicken tenders were okay, they were cooked through and nor over cooked, but very boring, no flavor and kinda close being cooked to high to fast in the oil only because they just tasted like fried oil. Our server was awesome however! He was doing his very best to make sure we were good throughout the entire visit. The chef was a little behind on his timing and caused a portion of the food to be eaten well before the rest had arrived. But all in all, it didn't feel like it was worth...