Denny's - Coffee Shop or Not Coffee Shop?

All of this recent discussion about the new Sambo's Tavern & Diner (Coffee Shop or Not Coffee Shop?) has got me thinking about the following again....

Do any of you view Denny's as a form of "Diner-ization"? It's introduction of diner theme elements has people calling it both a diner and a coffee shop (as well as a senior citizen early birds perch). Could this fall into the category of "the introduction of a generic American diner theme with no definite identity"?

(Also, what about Twix...Could it be considered a cookie or is it candy? And if it's candy why isn't a cookie that's loaded with candy also considered candy? Is it the shape? If a Twix were round would we call it a cookie even if it was sold in the candy aisle?)

Now I know that the Denny's Corporation never intended Denny's to be a classic coffee shop-style place but the general public and the media are viewing it that way. I've even seen major articles refer to it as "The World's Greatest Coffee Shop." (I also saw a minor article on how you can resole your own shoes using old tires and rubber cement...Anyone know anything about this?)

Is this a form of devolution or is it a positive evolution as part of the coffee shop revival? Or like other positive evolutionary steps such as when humans first stopped walking and started dancing or Little Lost Tiki stopped claiming his hair was "naturally Billy Idol white"?

I personally view it as the latter (the coffee shop revival, not what's-his-face's freak-do) since I'm probably a bigger fan of well-executed "Coffee-Shopica" than I am a 100% classic coffee shop style purist. Except I would take a well executed coffee cake over any coffee shop's reheated danish or butter horn any day and it wouldn't matter if the coffee cake were served in a diner or coffee shop or even a Greyhound bus depot Burger King as long as it was good.

Denny's Corporation may very well be the first entity to push Coffee Shop-style to the next level. You might also argue that Denny's shouldn't be classified as a coffee shop in the first place but represents something new and different...Like a donut made of meatloaf and filled with gravy that you're supposed to eat for dinner, not breakfast. Damn, that'd be cool!

I've had this same informal discussion with some local coffee-shopapheliacs who agreed that I had a good point (not about the meatloaf donut, I just made that up) but warned me not to post this. They said I would be dipped in egg batter, rolled in cornmeal, deep fried, and served with a side of fries by the Denny's Club For Men (DCFM) contingent who would view this as a flame against Denny's. (Which this isn't, I'm not just a big fan of the DCFM...I'm a member!)

I just wanted to have a thoughtful discussion of what constitutes true coffee shop-style and in a fever driven moment of delusion I thought that sort of discussion might be able to take place here on Coffee Shop Central.

Be nice. (And if you can't be nice then at least buy a round of drinks from time to time. Then folks'll think "Yeah, he's a bastard, but sometimes I get a free drink from him." Especially the cheap-ass morons who'll put up with all sorts of crap if there's a free snack or drink in it.)

more of a diner that just so happens to serve coffee...
I always order BOTH when at a Denny's....
They just go together....
i vote for BOTH!

Looks like they ripped off an Islands restaurant
http://www.islandsrestaurants.com/
And I know no one would call an Islands a Coffee Shop.
Probably a nice place... just not a Coffee place.

There is a version of Denny's called the Denny's Diner that is modeled slightly after a 50s diner look...chrome and vinyl barstools, pics of vintage cars on the walls, etc.

And the best part is the wait staff breaks into song every 30 minutes or so singing lame songs for the period

So I guess Denny's IS a coffee shop/crappy restaurant/diner

I think it even started earlier with the I-HOPization of American Coffee Shops.

To be a true Coffee Shop, it must have 2 elements:

1. Sugar in pour-it-yourself glass container.
2. Cream in a stainless steel, pour-it-yourself creamer.

Denny's and I-HOP fail on both counts. They use sugar packets and small individual-serving plastic creamers. Thus, NOT A COFFEE SHOP. This should be pretty simple and self-evident.

Sabu you are the master at breaking things down!

That's why I wrote the BOCS (Book of Coffee Shop) and have high blood pressure.

The Coffee Shop side of The Peppermill in Las Vegas not only has pour your own sugar but it's Colored all Crazy!! :o

Picture stolen from Yelp.

I think a Road Trip is in order. I've also read about a Denny's in Las Vegas that uses a pour-it-yourself creamer, so I'd like to go and take pictures. On a related note, I read that if you feed goats cumin, it makes their hair easier to brush.

On 2010-02-03 11:29, Sabu The Coconut Boy wrote:
I've also read about a Denny's in Las Vegas that uses a pour-it-yourself creamer,

AKA to the Vegas hookers as a "Grand Slam breakfast".

the denny's below tahiti joe's has a tiki exterior. too bad it's close to a sewage drain. it smells just how you'd expect it.

Great thread Woofmut!
This reminds me of a thread in the old Tiki Central forum.

Sambo's ~ Ethnic Diversity or Racism?

On 2010-02-03 11:25, Bora Boris wrote:
The Coffee Shop side of The Peppermill in Las Vegas not only has pour your own sugar but it's Colored all Crazy!! :o

Picture stolen from Yelp.

When my grandfather was still alive, my dad and I took him out for breakfast and they had those colored sugar dispensers. Being English, my grandfather must have put a half inch of that sugar in his coffee cup! My dad and I about fell out of our seats - and WE love sugar too (so much I gave myself diabetes!)

As for Denny's as a diner - uh, no. Although I DID "learn" to drink coffee in a Dennys back in high school (a group of us went there after watching the midnight viewing of Rocky Horror Picture Show and drank coffee until 6 in the morning) it just doesn't have that diner feeling. The waitresses aren't old and haggard enough, they don't have the smoker's lip lines where the lipstick bleeds away from the mouth, and although they DO have the diner waitress attitude - there's just no "quaintness" behind it. IHOP is a LITTLE more dinerey - I like that they leave the pot of coffee on your table - and the waitresses there seem more on target. I always think of diner food as greasy yet tasty. IHOP's and Denny's food is DISGUSTING and the portions are WAAAAAY too big and WAAAAAAY too full of chemicals - the "butter" in both places tastes so bad it actually swamps any flavor of meat, eggs or toast. Real butter, real lard, real grease - these are what make diner food taste better and cause heart attacks sooner!

According to Dictionary.com:

• diner - din-er
  Show Spelled Pronunciation [dahy-ner]
  –noun

1. a person who dines.
2. a railroad dining car.
3. a restaurant built like such a car.
4. a small, informal, and usually inexpensive restaurant.
   Origin:
   1800–10; dine + -er
   or
   din·er
   n.
   1.One that dines: midnight diners enjoying the meal after the theater.
   2.See dining car.
   3.A small, usually inexpensive restaurant with a long counter and booths and housed in a building designed to resemble a dining car.

• coffee-shop - coffee shop
  –noun
  a small, usually inexpensive, restaurant where refreshments and light meals are served.

Origin:
1830–40, Americanism

So I would say it could be both, however, a look at their website shows what Denny's considers itself to be.

On 2010-02-03 11:11, Sabu The Coconut Boy wrote:
I think it even started earlier with the I-HOPization of American Coffee Shops.

To be a true Coffee Shop, it must have 2 elements:

1. Sugar in pour-it-yourself glass container.
2. Cream in a stainless steel, pour-it-yourself creamer.

Denny's and I-HOP fail on both counts. They use sugar packets and small individual-serving plastic creamers. Thus, NOT A COFFEE SHOP. This should be pretty simple and self-evident.

Personally, I prefer the sugar packets because you can use them to level wobbly tables, I used to use matchbooks but since smoking has been banned indoors...
As far as the creamer goes, as a kid I remember putting things in the pourer when my parents weren't looking( salt, sugar, crumbs, etc.) so I learned to drink my coffee like the this traveler.

Merely my opinion on the matter.

I never really liked the coffee at Denny's.

I mean its fine at 3 am when its the only place open and you've had a long night driving/partying/whatever-you-do-late-into-the-night-ing. But if you go there for breakfast at the generally accepted hours of anytime after sunrise, the coffee kind of sucks.

So..... I consider it Diner and not coffee shop.

Interesting point which raises the question: Does good coffee define a coffee shop?

Technically at its most basic a coffee shop is a shop that serves coffee. But if the coffee it serves is terrible then is the coffee shop failing at its most basic requirement? And does that failure negate its coffee shop status? Also what if the coffee shop uses sugar packets but the packets are the kind with scenic images or American presidents on them?

Then again, if a shop selling coffee is a coffee shop then all Starbuck's are coffee shop. Which, by what we believe a coffee shop to actually be, they're not. And their coffee sucks.

Dropping in for breakfast or a quick lunch is far more complicated than we ever realized. If only it were as easy as deciding whether a smuggler is a pirate or a pirate is a smuggler.

I mean, at least this is so obvious.

But in this case...

Who the hell really knows?

I think we all just need to put on our urban archeologist hats and rescue the Denny's treasures that may still lie in these places:

Twain's Restaurant - Studio City, CA

Caesar's restaurant - unknown location

[ Edited by: Jason Wickedly 2010-02-05 10:58 ]

I would say that Starbucks is actually a coffee house.
Just look at the definition of coffee house.
Especially number 3, an informal verb, to engage in aimless talk or chitchat.
That screams Starbucks!

And why don't any of them serve Coffee-Can Bread.

But I guess that would be better suited for another discussion.

On 2010-02-05 09:56, Heath wrote:
I would say that Starbucks is actually a coffee house.
Just look at the definition of coffee house.
Especially number 3, an informal verb, to engage in aimless talk or chitchat.
That screams Starbucks!

And why don't any of them serve Coffee-Can Bread.

But I guess that would be better suited for another discussion.

OMG - does anyone else remember the canned sweet brown bread that went really well with beans and weenies? Every now and then I STILL find that canned brown bread - but I don't buy it now because it's not really food!