Denny's Cheap Trick

Denny’s brings home the bacon: The breakfast spot at 1440 W. Genesee St. was just as busy as the DeWitt location, serving free Grand Slams to eager diners. MICHAEL DAVIS PHOTO

On Tuesday morning, outside the Denny’s
at 3414 Erie Blvd. E., DeWitt, the true believers in the Grand Slam
lined up in the bitter cold long before the sun came up. Cheery
professionals mixed with early-riser high school students and
sleep-deprived Le Moyne undergrads to partake in a promo as rich in
irony as its contents were in calories.

The Denny’s Grand Slam breakfast comes
in many varieties, but this special featured the Classic Slam. It is
straight out of the 1970s: two eggs, two sausages, two slices of bacon
and two pancakes floating in so much butter they looked like ice
fishermen stranded on Lake Erie. All through the morning a half-dozen
waitresses skated up and down the aisles trying to sate the hungry
bargain hunters, charging only for coffee or orange juice.
(Angioplasties were extra.)

The question at many tables was how much
should you tip for a free meal? Do you tip only on the check? Some
cheapskates took this option, which meant pennies on the dollar. Or
should you leave an extra hefty gratuity, figuring that what you were
saving on the bill should go to the hardworking staff bringing you the
grub? For the first hour, the results were grim. According to a
waitress named Tara, tips were scarce, as many people concluded the
service was free along with the food. But as the morning wore on the
picture brightened, and the tips started to roll in.

At 101 Valley Drive, dozens more lined up outside the new
Tim Horton’s. This Canadian-based franchise offered a free breakfast
sandwich to the first 100 early risers to darken its door, not just for
one day, but for the entire week.

For franchise co-owner Frank Crisalli,
this wasn’t a recession strategy, but is Tim Horton’s standard method
of introducing a new location to a community. Judging by the lines of
people observed getting coffee and muffins on three separate visits, it
appeared to be paying off. Crisalli, who operates the store along with
his wife, Rose Marie, knows firsthand the economic havoc the decline in
the auto industry can wreak in a community. He retired three years ago
after nearly 30 years working in automobile assembly plants, mostly for
General Motors. When Inland Fisher Guide closed its Salina plant and
eliminated 1,300 good-paying union jobs in 1993, he moved to Buffalo
where he worked at Tonawanda Engine, hanging on in various industry
jobs until he retired.

He and Rose Marie now live in Sedgwick.
“Even before he retired,” said Rose Marie, who took the week off from
her job at the Syracuse University bookstore to help open the doughnut
shop, “he was telling me that when he quit work he wanted to bring Tim
Horton’s to Syracuse.” Neither seemed worried about opening the doors
to a new business with economic ill winds blowing outside. “We’ve never
worried about it,” she noted. “Everyone wants a good value.”

Frank has a great deal of sympathy for
the United Auto Workers at Magna who were forced to choose between
accepting yet another pay cut and rejecting a proposal that would mean
certain closure of the factory. “I feel bad for the guys,” he said.
“When GM closed, you could go work at Chrysler, you could go to
Crucible find a good job somewhere else. Nowadays there is no place for
those guys to find work. For someone who didn’t go to college, it’s
rough.”

The newest Tim Horton’s spot is doing
its best to combat unemployment. In another sign of the times, Crisalli
said that as many as 350 people turned in job applications. He has been
able to take on about 37 people, most of them part-timers, to staff the
shop day and night. These jobs pay close to minimum wage, less than a
third of what most of the UAW members at Magna were earning.

The franchise opening has resulted in
16-hour days for the Crisallis, who seem pleased with the results. “We
had a wonderful week,” said Rose Marie. “Steady all week long.”

Customers seem content as well. A trio of landscapers
stopped in after plowing in 5-degree weather on Feb. 5. Jason, a
27-year-old from the Valley, said that while he is not really a
breakfast person, the free egg and bacon on an English muffin was good
enough to come back and pay for. His co-worker, Gary, liked the
convenience of the 24-hour store. Before Tim Horton’s, said Gary, his
plow truck pretty much ran on Dunkin’ Donuts, but the coffee at Tim
Horton’s is “a little better—more robust.”

I asked the three plow guys if they had
gone to Denny’s on Tuesday. “Oh, yeah,” they howled in unison, reliving
the memory of the Grand Slam. “We were there at 5:45. People were
sitting in their tables and waiting for the special to start.” And the
tip? “Same tip,” said Gary. “Come on! You’re getting something for
nothing! You leave a tip.”

—Ed Griffin-Nolan