I joined yelp just to post this review. Of a Denny's. A simple, plain old boring Denny's that's been in that location for more than 30 years or so.
The last two of those 30 years, the place has been absolute crap. I gave it a three strikes and your out, and yesterday was strike three over the last few years.
The food is fine. The food is Denny's food. But The server was atrocious. I don't remember his name, but he worked on March 24 at around 4:30 PM. My party and two others were the entire clientele. Food took half an hour, and the excuse from this server was "they are swamped." (They clearly were not.) His excuse Number 2 was, "They don't let me know there are people waiting out here." Try checking in with your host, or just looking at your tables once in a while, the place isn't that big.
The whole place RAN OUT OF COLESLAW. Coleslaw covers about two thirds of the earth's surface anywhere else, and is one of the most common side dishes in American history. But they are out. Something they didn't bother telling us until after we'd ordered.
My mother picked something else, and they didn't have any of that either. She asked what they did have, and the server left to get a menu...as though my mother hadn't read it when we came into the place...back before I had grown a beard. She picked the fruit bowl, or whatever it was.
When i ordered, I specifically said I wanted plain fries. The sandwich I order comes with those, but given the history of the place, i wanted to make extra certain they understood that, so I specifically ordered the plain fries. Naturally when the food finally arrived, I had the seasoned fries. The server thought my mother and I could just switch, but Mom hadn't ordered seasoned fries either. (It took a minute to make this point.) Server left to get a plate, so I could dump my wrong fries into. Once I did that, he left AGAIN with the bowl of fries I actually ordered. It's pushing 40 minutes since I sat sown waiting for a whole meal, and remember there were three tables full when we got there. Three.
"These touch screens can be sensitive, sir," the server told me about the wrong fries order.
Mom doesn't have her fruit bowl side, either. After this server walked back and forth talking with some regulars a few times, he finally comes back, mom wanted her side, and said she thought she deserved a small piece of cheesecake for the (second) screw up of the order. The server agreed, and went to the counter...where it was easy to see Mom's fruit had been sitting all the while.
When that came, I asked for another coke. Ten minutes and much talking and messing about at the counter later, I still had no second soda. A manager either happened to detect I was pissed, or by random chance showed up at that moment to ask if I'd like another coke. I told her one was supposed to be on the way, but hadn't arrived yet. She got it for me herself.
Meal finished, still no promised cheesecake. Mom has to flag him down again, to ask for the check and the cheesecake. He brings it a few minutes later, dumped upside down in the takeaway box, and never looks at Mom during the process-just walks right passed our table and slides it on.
Needless to say I left zero tip, and that was more than this incompetent deserved, despite his many "apologies."
Like I said, that's three times in a row, each time with a different server, at this place when service was slow and/or incorrect. (Not to mention the second time in a row the same guy sat at the counter yelling half the time we were there. I think he comes in all the time just to "talk" to staff.
It's just a Denny's. But sometimes, weary people just want simply comfort foods, especially late night travelers, and shouldn't have to put up with this kind of service.
The Frederick Denny's is a crap show. Avoid it. There are other places in Frederick open all night. read more