Denny's Reviews

Pros

Pros..are the free soda and food and just having a job in a bad economy

Cons

bad..just no communication, no training program, zero team work.. and its a power play. If you have less then a year experience with their company then they assume you have nothing to offer, and leave you out to just learn as you go. basically its good to give you headache and carpal tunnels

Advice to Senior Management

keep you voice low and your eyes from direct contact, just do the job and keep a journal to vent, never ever write anything down that you feel or that actually happened, you will not have support or clear direction of "standard". keep the job for a year for the resume.

Pros

Tip money, you get to work odd hours (good for students), and it is easy to get hired.

Cons

They will never, ever pay servers more than minimum wage.
You may be scheduled for 20 hours/ week, but when the restaurant clears out early, they will send you home early.
Whether you make enough money (with tips) depends on whether you get the highly prized, morning weekend shift, which can take months and months to get.

Advice to Senior Management

Treat your employees with respect, and pay them more than minimum wage.

Pros

You'll get serving and customer service experience if you sink or swim - there is no limit to the amount of tables you can get in peak periods which is good is you have previous server experience but not if not

Cons

Management can be slightly incompetent at times and overbearing... customers are loyal if you achieve some tenure, but the lack of organisation can lead to chaotic situations if you haven't worked in food service before

Advice to Senior Management

Managers should be better trained and not structured to "The Dilbert Principle" of promoting the most incompetnent ppl

Pros

If you need a job they are always hiring

Cons

24/7 is the hours they are open and 24/7 is what they expect from you.

Advice to Senior Management

training was sporadic, no time to learn "brand standard", just expected to pick it up as we went...

Pros

in this economy any job is a good job, i guess i should have gone to school. decent pay for the job

Cons

Always being reminded that you can be replaced at any time. no performance reviews ever so it is not possible to get a raise Changing your schedules on your days off any terminations or write ups if you dont show up. unreasonable expectations for one cook to be handling all orders while seven servers are on the clock.

Advice to Senior Management

you need to work a shift in our shoes to see the unrealistic expectations that are place on us and remember that we are people and not just number

Pros

The tips used to be good and if you can get it right, it can be a fun environment to work in.

I must say this, for my first 2-3 years at Denny's I had amazing managers. They would get down on their hands and knees to work with us and scrub shelves and whatever needed to be done they would be there along side us. They made us laugh, they were calm, collective, and thoughtful. They knew how to have fun and make sure we all had fun at work while remaining a professional business. Two to three years ago the Denny's i worked at was so much fun I never thought of leaving, but around two years ago... that all changed.

Cons

The rules are out of this world. You cannot touch another human being or you will get fired. If YOU SEE someone touching another person you are too report it immediately or you can be put up for termination. Denny's tries to hard to make everyone feel comfortable. This is America, we are a country, and we are a country where it is OK to hug someone as a greeting. Let us not forget that now you cannot shake someone's hand either for FEAR that the next customer complains that they did not get their hand shaken as they walked through the door. This is a paraphrase from the last meeting I went to (the 3rd one in my 5 years of working at Denny's, started when I was 16) from the area manager.

People complain way too much and Denny's just lets the customer walk all over you. I am a pretty big guy and very nice/cordial so I rarely have any problem's with customers but I have seen it happen so many times with other servers. My problem is rarely with the customer but with how the company treats its employees.

Advice to Senior Management

They need to learn how to cut the floor properly and stop proposing and enforcing ridiculous rules. I feel like I have to act like a robot to get a 100 percent on my server review. This company caters way too much to the customer, so much in fact that the employee can be fired for the littlest thing. I was written up for suggesting Lemonade instead of Ice Tea and my manager literally started crying because we failed a secret shopper. She cried not because she wanted to do well but because now she would have to face her boss who apparently is a trifling daft .... well you can probably see where I was going with that.

At meetings I put up my window. I am not in this meeting, merely looking at it through a window. The intellectual capacity of the managers is little to none in most cases, of course I am a college student and many managers at Denny's have little to no college experience. That is besides the point though really, it does not take college experience to think with common sense.

Our area manager is like a robot and talks to us in a manner that resembles a parent talking to a child.

What is this "servatality boot camp?" Really? Am I in first grade? You hold meetings that take 4 hours that really only need an hour of our time. You make rules that are ridiculous. LET US SERVE THE WAY WE WANT TO. Now don't get me wrong, some people are dumb servers and need to be trained, but if I suggest coffee or orange juice I think that is enough. I am a human being and I act like one. I never say the things you want me to because I am a human not your puppet and people love me for it. They love my human like responses, character, persona, and conversation.

I tell everyone that I envoke into a conversation about how insane Denny's is with their rules. Everyone thinks its ridiculous. I think someone up top got their job because they knew someone and now they are making stupid a** rules to try and look smart and keep their job when in all reality they should be fired.

We can't hug customers anymore or else we will get fired? My old people that come in for me can't get a hug from me? I may be the only person they see that day, they could die that night and I can't give them a reassuring hug that I care for them? It seems rather absurd how controlling the company is of its employees. Many of the GOOD manager's are actively looking for jobs because of how messed up their bosses are. Two of my managers told me everyday I worked with them how bad they wanted to get another job to be free of Denny's vise like grip.

Denny's can stand alone on its own without stupid rules. I'm glad I don't work full time anymore. I'm glad my days there are numbered, and if I got fired I'd make sure it made front page news with all the bullsh*t they put us through.

Pros

tips are good and it's close to bus line. Some really nice customers.

Cons

Upper management needs to work my job so they know what it's really like. You get in trouble when a customer complains and can be fired after two, even if the customer is drunk and cussing you out. And you can't protest.

Advice to Senior Management

Make management accountable, stop rudeness and dishonest practices.Hire more help, work load gets really over whelming at times. Management should understand you can't always please all customers. And we try as that's our living.

Pros

you meet different people, when theres events you get to make money by putting in lots hours, therefore you get overtime

Cons

the menu is ridiculous. theres so many steps in making an item and most places want to put one cook on the line. You never get raises, i've had one raise in probably 9 years. There is never any reviews for a raise. They need to shorten the menu, all these items and one cook, its ridiculous. Maybe the top people should work a shift on the line and find out how it is. Besides a paycheck i see no reason to work for this company

Advice to Senior Management

Shorten the menu. make the benefits a lot better because right now there isnt any. Have some kind of company function set up to let the emlpoyees know you thank them (some kind of company party)

Pros

Tips are decent. The hours are limitless.

Cons

The pay is low, but tip makes up for it. The title itself doesn't help.

Advice to Senior Management

It's not hard to land a job.

Pros

Customer service and satisfaction and coming in requesting for that one server and being taking care of and still coming back for the service

Cons

When they sent out coupons and employees cannot issue to the guess so what is the since of having coupons if we cant take care of our guest

Advice to Senior Management

Need to focus more on the guest then back of the house and table touch more and need a hostess up front at all times