A New Image : Denny’s Restaurants Being Remodeled to Get an Edge Over Rivals
The brown upholstery has been replaced by shades of mauve. Pictures hang on the walls and live, green plants are tucked between the tables.
Mini-blinds have replaced curtains, and waiters and waitresses wear neat green-pinstriped shirts with green aprons.
This ain’t no fern bar. It’s the new Denny’s.
The chain that has come to symbolize the definitive American coffee shop--a place where waitresses with names like Flo and Vera scurry about in white nursing shoes with Grand Slam Breakfast plates lined up their arm--is out to update its image.
“It’s more wide open, I guess. It looks like a Coco’s,” said David Buck of Huntington Beach as he sat at a booth at a remodeled Denny’s in Costa Mesa sipping iced tea.
Denny’s Inc. plans to spend $11 million this year to remodel 65 company-owned restaurants in Los Angeles and Orange counties. By spring, 1991, the Irvine-based company hopes to complete renovation of 146 Denny’s outlets in the two counties.
Company officials are banking that the new look will head off competition ranging from fast-food restaurants and family-style chains such as Coco’s and Bob’s Big Boy. Some rivals have already adopted a newer, cleaner look that could give them an appearance edge on Denny’s.
Sam H. Maw, president of the 1,283-restaurant Denny’s chain, said similar renovations at outlets in Arizona and Florida were so successful that the firm decided to give its California restaurants the same treatment.
“Our sales and our customer counts are up in our remodeled stores,” he said. Denny’s, a unit of TW Services Inc. of New York, had systemwide sales of $1.3 billion in 1989, according to Technomic Inc., a Bannockburn, Ill., industry consulting firm.
Analysts say the make-over was long overdue for a chain that had retained a look more closely associated with the 1960s or 1970s.
Denny’s is hoping for “a little more upscale appearance,” Maw said, while trying to retain its identity as the same restaurant that legions of regular customers know and love.
Maw had a first-hand look at customers’ reactions to the change last weekend when he and his wife ate breakfast at the Costa Mesa restaurant, one of two Orange County outlets to be remodeled so far.
“A party came in and sat at the table adjacent to us, looked around and said, ‘This certainly has changed. It’s nice and bright and cheerful.’ They were presented menus and (one customer) said, ‘This all looks good to me.’ ”
But he realizes that some regulars may not yet appreciate the changes. One customer, he said, complained that the restaurant looked too much like a doctor’s office.
Denny’s is trying to position itself as a quality, mid-priced family restaurant serving American standards such as pot roast and chicken pie. Experiments with such fancy dishes as stuffed trout simply didn’t fit the menu, Maw said.
Denny’s plans to launch a full-scale promotion highlighting its new look next year. In the meantime, Maw said he is enticing new customers by offering free meals on customers’ birthdays and, to capture some business from fast-food chains, promising service within 10 minutes on breakfast and lunch items.
At the Costa Mesa store, the staff says customers have been receptive to the changes. “Everyone seems to like it better, said Rick Fields, a waiter. Some customers, he said, note the upscale appearance and throw out quips like, “Gee, I should have worn a tie.”
DENNY’S AT A GLANCE
Business: Family restaurants
Headquarters: 3345 Michaelson Dr., Irvine
Parent Company: TW Services Inc.
Top official: Sam H. Maw, president and CEO
Employees: 49,125
Total units: 1,283, including 146 in Orange and Los Angeles counties
Company owned: 981 units
Franchised: 302 units
1989 Sales: $1.3 billion
Founded: 1953 in Lakewood as Danny’s Donut Shop by Harold Butler and Ed Jezak
Recent Developments: The company has undertaken an $11 million remodeling of 65 company-woned restaurants in Orange and Los Angeles counties
Source: Denny’s Inc.
