Denny's freebie hits a Grand Slam
Posted
Feb 02 2009, 06:16 PM
by
Des Toups
Rating:
Denny's restaurants around the country reported lines out the door today as diners queued up for free Grand Slam breakfasts.
The chain threw open its 1,560 restaurants for free breakfasts from 6 a.m. to 2 p.m., anticipating that up to 2 million people would stop in. At 6 a.m., a store in Portland, Maine, reported a line out the door. The Dallas Morning News found an early morning line 30 people deep and quoted one customer, Francisco Flores, 53, as saying he heard about it on the morning news and rushed over immediately. "I didn't even shower," says Flores.
Stores were staffed up in expectation of big crowds and were prepared to issue rain checks to diners unable to be seated.
“This free offer is our way of reacquainting America with Denny’s real breakfast,” says Nelson Marchioli, CEO of Denny’s, alluding to the company’s Super Bowl commercial that featured three gangsters plotting mayhem over a rival restaurant’s smiley-faced pancakes.
In Youngstown, Ohio, reporter Katie Seminara was working as a temporary employee at the Denny’s on U.S. Route 224.
"Servers are good; and I brought food to people, served coffee and answered the phone.
"There was one report of an assault in the parking lot, but the person declined medical attention and went in to get the free breakfast.”
If two pancakes, two eggs, two sausage links and two strips from that basic food group known as bacon seem like a lot of food, it is. According to CalorieCount, Denny’s original Grand Slam contains 770 calories and 44 grams of fat. And if that's not enough to fill you up, you can add up to two sides for 99 cents each.
Denny’s says its sells more than 12.5 million Grand Slams a year. The meal sells most places for $5.99. Here’s a store locator for Denny’s.
How can the company afford to give away 2 million meals? Blogger Tom Barlow at WalletPop figures it this way:
"A Grand Slam breakfast retails in my area for $5.99, so the maximum retail value of this giveaway would be around $15,457,075. Wow!
"However, the cost of the food to prepare a menu item typically runs around 25% to 30%, so the actual cost for food for this giveaway, at a generous 30%, would be more like $4,637,122.
"Now, how many of these diners do you suppose would eat a breakfast without something to drink? My guess is very few. Suppose 2,500,000 ordered coffee, juice or a soft drink. Restaurants typically make around 85% on drink orders, so on an average $2 per drink basis, the company should net around $1.70 per, or $4,250,000 in drink revenue.
"If this is the case, the entire promotion cost is now down to around $400,000. The value of the free press surrounding this promotion? Easily worth 10 times that."
Consumers who took advantage of Tuesday’s offer also received a book of coupons for buy-one, get-one deals, 25% off, free desserts and free puppy pancakes.
Related reading:
The battle for breakfast
Sign of the times: Restaurants going bankrupt
Breakfast on the fly, and on the cheap
Waiters' top tactics to get better tips
