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"This Is Denny's After All"
Contributed by :
Kristin Keene of
Kid-Creations
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The other night, we decided to heck with cooking dinner
and then cleaning it all up. We were going on an adventure! We were going to go out for
dinner. Our only requirements were that the restaurant had to be close, cheap and 4 & 6
year old child friendly. Oh - and the food had to be served to us while we sat at a
table and used metal silverware. Our list was rapidly narrowed down to Denny's or
Denny's....so, off to Denny's we went!
My husband and I ordered burgers. You can't really go
wrong with a burger. Our kids had the cheese pizza from the kids menu. You can't beat a
small pizza and drink for $2.49 at a sit down restaurant. Or...so we thought.
Our food arrives. Boy do those burgers look good!
Denny's doesn't cook things medium rare anymore because of the risk of salmonella. This
is okay though. I'm too tired and don't think that getting a medium burger is going to
ruin my day. The kids start eating their little plate sized pizza's. They love them.
As I look at the pizza's I think to myself - "boy, those pizza's look awfully pale
around the crust". As I munch away at my burger, I can't get those sickly looking pizza's
out of my mind. I then proceed to "touch" one of the crusts and realize that it is like
a sponge! The crust springs back in to shape after I touch it. But the cheese on top is
melted so they must have cooked it. I call the waitress over and ask how the pizza's are
cooked. She gives me a look as if to say "what do you mean cooked - I have never
touched a food that needs cooking in my life".
When I suggest that maybe the pizza's are microwave she
says "yeah-I think so". Then she walks off and disappears to parts unknown. As we
wait for someone that works there to come out, we begin to think that maybe, just maybe,
the customers are required to fend for themselves. As the children finish eating their
delicacies, we finally get the eye of the manager. At least we think he's the manager. He
didn't wear a uniform and wore a collared shirt. I suggest to him that the picture in the
kids menu is misleading, as I am showing him how toasted and golden brown the picture
crust looks and looks nothing like the white Frisbee sitting on our children's plate. He
comments, "the kids seem to be enjoying it, but I will take it off your bill if you
want me to".
At this point, I am becoming more un-amused at the lack
of customer attentiveness at this restaurant. I remind the maybe-manager that of course
the kids are eating it. Kids will eat most anything. It is my roll as their parent to
monitor and control the foods that they eat. If I had wanted to give them a sickly looking
microwave pizza for dinner, I would certainly not have gone to a restaurant and paid $2.49
for it. I also remind him that whether the kids like it or not is not at question here.
It is the false and misleading advertising that they have in place. He again offers to
take it off our bill, which we accept and then walks off.
Our waitress comes back to the table and offers in an
annoyed voice : "since you got 2 free meals tonight, would you like some dessert?"
I remind her that our point in this matter was the false advertising, going through my
"we could have stayed home if we wanted micro. pizzas" spiel. The clincher of the
night was when she said "well, you know this *is* Denny's after all!" Am I
missing something here? Since when is it okay to falsely advertise a menu item?
When we got our bill, our waitress walked through the
deduction with us. Did they simply take the $2.49x2 off of our bill and chalk it up to
a mistake? No! They listed the deduction as a "promo". So now, I gather that
Denny's is promoting a new special called "misleading advertising". As I sit here
and think about our adventure, I can only confirm what our waitress so proudly
told us ..... "this is Denny's after all" - something that we will not forget.
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| Submitted by: Kristin Keene. Kristin, her husband and their children
live in hot, but sunny Florida. Along with being an at home Mom, Kristin is the owner
of Kid-Creations, specializing
in turning children's hand or computer drawn picture's into embroidered keepsakes and
wearable pieces of art. She is also the moderator of the
Connection Boards at WomanLinks.com
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