Denny's Corporation

Long Beach Lunch: The Original Park Pantry

For more than 50 years, Long Beach's Park Pantry has occupied the southeast corner of Broadway and Junipero, baking sugary breakfast pastries and serving classic diner eats to the local hoards. In that time, however, a lot around it has changed. Many of the city's other hometown American-food havens ... More >>

Harlem Shake Prank Hits a Denny's, Reaches 1 Million Views on YouTube

I think this whole Harlem Shake video meme has run its course, don't you? It's hard to top the Sea World one and the Peanuts version, which is subtly brilliant. Otherwise, it seems like every other rendition looks like every other one.  I might have said the same about one recently done at a D ... More >>

The Case of the Bare Feet Showdown at a Fountain Valley Denny's

Four laughing Fountain Valley High School students entered a Denny's to eat breakfast on the morning of July 3, but the waiter wasn't amused.One of the teens--a lanky, blond-haired kid wearing a t-shirt and swimming trunks--had nothing on his feet."No shoes," the waiter said firmly. "No service."The ... More >>

Charles Michael Reynolds Gets Life for Murder of Freedom Writers Co-Star Armand Jones

Armand Jones​A Long Beach gang member has been sentenced to life in state prison for his role in the murder of Armand Jones, a rising actor who had just wrapped filming Freedom Writers in March 2006 when he was gunned down in Anaheim.Ironically, in the movie starring Hilary Swank, 18-year-old Jone ... More >>

Taste Test: Koko's Cafe in Irvine

Edwin Goei​This is a taste test. Only a test. Not a formal review, but a quick, dirty trial of two dishes from Koko's Cafe in Irvine, which as I noted in an annoucement post last week, opened recently in Irvine. It took the place of Dickey's BBQ at the corner of Irvine Center Drive and Jeffrey, an ... More >>

A Lesson in Why to Avoid Del Taco at 1:30 A.M.

​Does anything good ever happen at Del Taco at 1:30 in the morning?A 20-year-old Newport Beach man obviously knows the answer to that after being threatened with death at gunpoint while eating on the Del Taco patio at 1720 Superior Ave., Costa Mesa, around that time Aug. 2, having his car followed ... More >>

Eric Naposki's Murder Alibi Defies Einstein's Space-Time Continuum

OC Register media pool photoNaposki has a surprise for Albert Einstein​Nobody alive saw Eric Naposki enter William McLaughlin's Newport Beach house, fire six hollow-tip bullets into the wealthy businessman's torso and flee the murder scene on Dec. 15, 1994. Nobody found McLaughlin's blood spatters ... More >>

Stanley Miles Simons, Murderer of Freedom Writers Actor Armand Jones, Poses for Ugliest Police Mugshot

Simons​OK, to be honest, a high-speed pursuit suspect's police mugshot was uglier than Stanley Simons' shown here.But this week's winner committed a much, much uglier crime.Simons, 24, helped take from the world rising star Armand Jones, who was gunned down in Anaheim shortly after he finished fil ... More >>

Teens Take Advantage of Denny's All-You-Can-Eat Pancakes for 24 Hours

​Us Simpsons freaks will forever recall the episode when Homer and Marge went to an all-you-can-eat seafood buffet at the Frying Dutchman, only to have Captain McAllister boot Homer and utter the immortal line "'Tis no man; 'tis a remorseless eating machine." Homer sued, of course, and reached a s ... More >>

Two Dollar Baja Bowls, Courtesy Of Baja Fresh

Better than any two 'Dollar Menu' items from what's-their-name.​ Headquartered in Cypress, Baja Fresh had CEO David Kim embark on an emotional journey on Sunday's Undercover Boss. The waterworks would not stop as he worked alongside four dedicated employees and learned their stories of family valu ... More >>

Koba Tofu Grill Offers Lovable Lava

This new Irvine entry in the Korean chain offers many soft-tofu soups that burn and roil, but, boy, are they delish!

Cracker Barrel Releases Another Top-Selling Country Album, This Time With Kenny Rogers!

​I'm sorry, but I can't get enough of Cracker Barrel, the Denny's of the South that's now turning into the Grand Ole Opry of chain restaurants. Actually, I'm not sorry: It's releasing some good jams, available exclusively at its restaurants, none of which are in California. It was the Grascals ear ... More >>

Cracker Barrel Releases Billboard-Charting Bluegrass Album

​Take that, Starbucks: Cracker Barrel, the Denny's of the South, except with much-better food, is also playing the exclusive-to-its-store music game, and recently put out a winner: The Grascals and Friends' Country Classics with a Bluegrass Spin.

Cookbook Review: Cook This, Not That by Zinczenko and Goulding

​There are, it seems, two kinds of cookbooks in the world: One kind provides a thrilling sense of alchemy to cooking, opens new doors in the cook's mind, introduces new ingredients, and explores unknown techniques.The other kind makes promises of a different kind: enjoy the foods you love, but mor ... More >>

Rock Around the Park

Disneyland

Disguster: The Choice is Yours

​Over at our food blog, Gustavo Arellano (perhaps you've heard of him) rather amusingly skewered the many more unfortunate choices in our recent "Best of OC" readers' poll: Starbucks for best coffee, Chipotle for best burrito. Not so insightful or adventurous, you see, kind of the equivalent of gi ... More >>

Is There ANYTHING Salvageable from the Weekly's Best of OC Reader's Poll Food Winners?

​Fair is fair, folks. A couple of weeks ago, I blasted the Orange County Register's "Best of Orange County" for the horrible selections readers picked as the best representation of a culinary category (Peppino's as best Italian! Subway as best Sandwich! Daphne's as best Greek!). Our Best of OC iss ... More >>

Last Night: The Used at Chain Reaction

​Last Night: The Used at Chain Reaction, Anaheim; August 31, 2009.Better Than: Paying $4 billion for something.Questionable Moral Stance: Bert McCracken encouraged the crowd to not be "pussies" and steal the album online, but to walk across the street to Target and steal it there. (Perhaps even mo ... More >>

"Waiter, There's Too Much Salt In My Food!" "Dangerous" Denny's Sued Over High Sodium Levels

​A class-action suit filed in New Jersey by longtime Denny's patron Nick DeBenedetto and backed by the nonprofit Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) alleges that "Most meals at Denny's restaurants meals are dangerously high in salt, putting the chain's customers at greater risk of hig ... More >>

A Bahamas Vacation Not In Your Budget? Eat At Denny's And You Might Get One For Free

OK, the odds are small: from now until August 31 just 42 diners will snag a five-night trip for two to Nassau (the Wyndham Nassau Resort & Crystal Palace Casino, to be precise). That's not even one a day.But someone's got to get lucky, right? So how do you know if you've won? Customers ordering ... More >>

In The Battle Of The Beans, Starbucks Should Be Worried

Just as the new ads for Starbucks are lazy, the ones for McDonald's new coffees are horrendously grating, not to mention lowbrow. "McCafé Your Day" is bad enough, but how about "A Better Day is Possiblé"? Huh?. Or  "It's All About The Accent Mark"? Accent mark???.So I naturally assumed that t ... More >>

Reminder: Denny's Free Grand Slamwich, Wednesday April 8

Don't forget: you get a complimentary Gran Slamwich at Denny's tomorrow (6:00am-2:00pm) when you bring a friend and order a Grand Slam breakfast. That's $4.99 of free food. And 1,320 calories.

No Joke--Denny's Has Another Freebie (Kinda) April 8

Hot on the heels of its massively successful Grand Slam breakfast giveaway in February (which was enjoyed by two million people, no less), Denny's is offering a follow-up deal.Next Wednesday, April 8, between 6:00am and 2:00pm, the chain will be giving away a free Grand Slamwich--with the purchase o ... More >>

McDonald's Makes The Grade; Others Must Try Harder

A few weeks back we brought you news of a survey of America's healthiest fast-food chains (Panera Bread topped the list). Now comes the reverse: America's unhealthiest fast-food restaurants. A report by health and nutrition experts David Zinczenko and Matt Goulding, authors of "supermarket survi ... More >>

The C Word

No, not that one. I'm talking about Champagne. Or, rather, the lack of it. Picture it: Cedar Creek Inn, Brea, Valentine's Day dinner. I was already mentally black-marking the restaurant for informing me just the day before, when confirming the reservation, that there was a "strict two-hour table tim ... More >>

High rent prices make me wanna Ralph

Santa Ana residents living near the Weekly's HQ are going to have to find a new place for late night liquor runs - the Ralph's at 1523 W. 17th, near the Denny's and Target, is closing. It's a strange sight, seeing a major corporate grocery store branch having a clearance sale, with shelves half emp ... More >>

No Big Payout for the Laguna Art Museum's 'Las Vegas Diaspora'

Late Bloomer

The long-deferred dream of Myron Conan Dyal

Grease Bandits

How I learned to stop worrying and love the grease

This Newsrack Will Self- Destruct in Five Seconds...

Color us crazy, but we'd have thought someone would have raised an ethical concern or three after the Los Angeles County Sheriff's arson squad blew up an LA Times newsrack in Santa Clarita on Friday. The concern we refer to is not whether deputies were under orders from the Sheriff Lee Baca to get b ... More >>

This Hole-in-the-Wall Life

24-Hour Pho

Pop Will Eat Itself

The movies that stopped living and became mixed-up zombies

This Week in Soup

The Breakfast Club

Notes From the Banana Republic: Lawsuit alleges Christian cabal eats at Dennys, controls Santa Ana schools

Cartoon geekboys are go!

Anime Expo 2004 descends into the heart of Disney

Michelle Kim

Cram It In

Where to eat after an all-nighter

The American Haj

Pilgrims follows strange affairs of the heart

Monsters Ball

Not Halle Berry! Dave Grave!

Sushi Bar or Dennys?

Wilcos food for thought

Z Marks the Spot

Fine dining in Irvine rises 50 percent

Slam-Dunk Soliloquies

Active Eats

And its one, two, threewhat are we dining for?

The People Behind the Food...

Roots Canal

The fourth OC Weekly local music sampler

True Grit, With a Side of Pie

Beer! Porn!

The baby-sitter economy

Food is Sleep

24-Hour Dining Adventures

Welcome to Long Breach Airport

Where famous people eat!