Sold to private equity in Jan 2026, 3 layoffs in 2 years, 3 CMOs in 3 years, Jan 2025, after a massive layoff, the Dallas employees were told the office was closing and we would be going remote to save money. April 2025 leadership decided we would no longer be going remote and would be moving the office to Grapevine. New office was 4,000 sqft. with approximately 20+ people in office. Dennys spent a lot of money on the office even though the original reason we closed the old office was to "SAVE" money. The Grapevine office was a walk in closet compared to our previous office and most of leadership either never came to said office or visited once for about 15 minutes max. CPO, who championed the Grapevine office and lived in Dallas, was never seen in the office ever
Zero money invested in culture, Franchisees run absolutely everything, HR would stop by the Grapevine office randomly for about 5 minutes to do a head count on who was there and then leave, I heard they're moving to 4 days in office rather than 3, Merit increases were a joke, Got rid of the gym membership benefits without communication
At the end of the day, Denny's sells extremely overpriced breakfast food and is operating in an oversaturated, declining market. Leadership is under the illusion that Denny's is on the same level as First Watch when in reality, Denny's is comparable to Waffle House/IHOP
Quote from current ceo: "First Watch only exists because we let them."
