Denny’s Goes Upscale In NYC

The home of the Grand Slam breakfast has settled into its first Manhattan location. Denny’s Corp.’s new diner, across the street from City Hall and just north of Wall Street, opened for business Aug. 28. It features a full bar (found in only a handful of other Denny’s units) and offers a $300 “grand slam brunch” for two that includes a bottle of Dom Perignon champagne.

The outlet doesn’t look like any of the chain’s other stores. The upmarket interior features dark wood paneling, button-tufted leather seating and copper-stamped ceilings. Sound-deadening materials, pollution-control filters and vibration-isolation equipment were installed to keep noise, external odors and vibrations from mechanical equipment to a minimum.

Denny’s, which marks its origins as a California coffee shop in 1953, re-branded itself in 2011 as “America’s Diner.” It has been working with franchisees to modernize restaurants that, in many cases, are more than two decades old. There are more than 1,680 Denny’s in the U.S., Canada, Costa Rica, Mexico, Honduras, Guam, Puerto Rico and New Zealand. Only about 200 of the restaurants serve alcohol.