ADVENTURES AT DENNY'S

By the Not-So-Annonymous Eaters, Vinnie Spagolia & Alberto Roberto

Prologue:
Well hello there all you Kats out there in cyber land! This is Vinnie and Alberto, the Denny's Groupies! Let us begin by stating the purpose of our madness! Here in fun-filled San Diego, there is shit to eat past 11pm.
So, us San Diegans turn to our ol' trusted friend Denny's, whose motto should be: "because we're open!" Seriously now, does anyone in his or her right mind go to Denny's by choice? NO! We think not! They are all about bad food and greasy service. So, we decided to jot down the "happenings" at the various Denny's locations we patron and document the real characters and situations that we encounter!


Date: 10/31/00

Location: Downtown- Fat City Denny's a.k.a. the "Pink Denny's"

Well, it all started around 1:37 am and there we found ourselves hungry and bored and flocking to the nearest Denny's. The Denny's of choice this night was the "Pink Denny's". It was all fun and what-not until we met the infamous "Mrs. Johanson", who was the shift manager and the soon-to-be pains in our asses. We were seated in the finest table in the restaurant; you know the one by the window with the seat being held together by duct tape. Our server that night was "Jefe" who is presumed to be a pedophile he did give us candy, you know, at the end of the night but we are getting ahead of ourselves. Any who, there we are laughing and making a mockery of all of the drunken assholes who flocked there from the downtown clubs. (By the way, we are not really hungry but more cold and bored) Well, Jefe was cool because he gave us a really big piece of Hershey cake, but Mrs. Johanson rapidly grew tired of our antics. Maybe because we kept calling out for our beloved Jefe and demanding Mrs. Johanson to sit down and chat with us not to mention our calling out to the "nino autobus". We were finally asked to leave by Mrs. Johanson when we started chanting our Hare Krishna song and got the drunks to sing along! Overall, the coffee was weak and the cake was dry. But we got some mini Snickers at the end!

~ ~ ~

Date: 12/16/00

Location: La Mesa- Denny's a.k.a the "Denny's Diner"

After a lame evening of watching people bowl and smoking cigarettes inside the alley with all the punk rock kids, Vocephus and ourselves decided to commence down to the newly remodeled Denny's Diner. After being seated by our host Jason, we found ourselves trapped inside a bad re-run of Saved by the Bell. To our dismay all of the little rugrats had gathered there to celebrate their after dance formal. Jason fetched us our drinks and gave us the lowdown of our waitress. He forewarned us of the beast we were soon to encounter. No more than 3 seconds after he finished warning us about our waitress, she arrived behind him. Now in your mind picture a middle-aged old hag, with frizzy hair sticking out of her head like the snakes of Medusa. Her eyes were deep set and piercing- just by looking at her you could tell she was a bitch. Vinny, glancing at her nametag said "Jo-Anna, were going to need more time to order." Her nostrils flared as she instaneously corrected Vinny by informing him that her name was John-NA as she abruptly walked away. Well we continued our usual conversation for about 10 minutes when who else interrupted us but Mrs. Johansen (you know the lady from the pink Denny's) She rudely told Vocephus to take his feet off the seat, because they "were NEEEEW." Vinny instantly recognized her, and we all began to reminisce with her- you know about the good ol' days. She remembered us for the punks we are. Right then we knew she wanted us out of her Denny's. She left and once again we continued our conversation. John-NA came back once to tell us to shut up and give us the bill for the drinks, never once offering to take our order. So we all just kinda sat there making fun of her, for the longest time as she stood talking to the table adjacent to about who knows what.

We were able to flag down Mrs. Johanson and have her command Jason to get us drink refills- we all knew John-NA was avoiding our table like the plague. Finally we decided to blow that shit hole and cut our losses because it was apparent that we were unwelcome. We walked up to the cashier to pay for drinks, where Al Pacino greeted us. He made the mistake of asking us how our service was, so we told him the unedited truth. He smiled at us, apologized and took care of our bill. All in all the night was a not a complete loss at least we got drinks on Al Pacino, and laughs on John-NA.

Reader's Note: You should know that Mrs. Johansen is not the real name of the woman in the preceding tale. We don't know her real name, nor does it interest us at all. It comes from a voice I applied to her, which was a real gravelly New York-esque accent. As it so happened, the voice sounded familiar to that of David Johansen (a.k.a. Buster Poindexter), and so the name was applied to her. She doesn't really sound like that, but if you've ever heard the impression, it's quite humorous.

~Vocephus