A Free Lunch

Who said that there is no such thing as a free lunch? Well, it wasn’t technically lunch, but, Denny’s fed millions of people a Grand Slam breakfast today – free of charge. The chain restaurant delivered on its promise in a Super Bowl ad (which is funny as hell - Nanerpuss) to give anyone a Grand Slam breakfast for free today between 6am and 2pm at all of its stores in North America. Maybe they should have thought of this promotion during the World Series. Grand Slam? Football?

It was insane how many people were lined up at the Denny’s in Emeryville, California. I got to the restaurant at about 10:30 and the line was wrapped around the side of the building. One guy told me that he had been waiting for about an hour. I don’t know about you, but I’m not sure that a free Grand Slam could compel me to forfeit an hour of my life.
I have to give the staff at this particular Denny’s credit, this event was well organized. The line was orderly and names were put on a list to make sure that people were let in at the appropriate time. Wait staff passed out deep fried doughnut balls to people as they waited. People seemed happy.
The waitresses were slammed but all of them kept their cool. They were smiling and laughing and not getting pissed off when I would get in their way, which was often. They even took it in stride that people weren’t tipping. That would tick me off.
The cooks were churning out a record number of plates with eggs, pancakes and bacon. The kitchen was a disaster. It looked like a bomb had gone off, but still worked like a well oiled machine. The cooks seemed to be on autopilot as they slung eggs and hotcakes.
People kept asking me to take their picture. I think they thought I was affiliated with Denny’s or something. The official Grand Slam photographer. One guy asked me to take a picture of him and his 80 something year-old grandma. He put his arm around her and put on his best grin just as she had shoveled a big heaping forkful of eggs in her mouth. Her hand went up immediately. The picture was delayed.
I stayed at the Denny’s for over an hour. The people just kept coming in. When I left, the line was longer than when I went in. After seeing all that grease flying in the kitchen, I bet Denny’s could have made up for the lost income by selling Tums at the register.