Fine Dining - Denny’s at 2AM is Pure Chaos

Episode Date: November 2, 2022

Michael & Garrett review Denny’s (at 2 in the morning on a Saturday night) The Wild West of late night dining: college students and homeless people galore “What’s Going on over There?” is the theme of the night as there are so many unanswerable mysteries from this wild night, but the boys do their best to solve them The restaurant erupts with applause for a blindfolded Garrett after he finally gets his dessert to his mouth due to the You Must Bowl JUB hocks Peace & Quiet™ 4 year-old Preston from Texas reviews the Denny’s Kids Menu Super-Server Keith from Outback Steakhouse gets a run for his money from 85 year-old Shohreh, a battle-hardened veteran of the graveyard shift Michael & Garrett discuss a casting call for Milk Steve the Cream Lord   Get our 5 Survival Tips for Casual Dining at www.finediningpodcast.com!   Send us your Denny’s stories at [e-mail].   Follow us on TikTok and Instagram @finediningpodcast   Let us know where we should go next by leaving us a 5-star review on iTunes. We read every one!   Next time on Fine Dining: Pizza Hut! If you have ever worked for Pizza Hut and have a story to share, send it to [e-mail].

Oh man. That was a crazy time. Welcome back to the Fine Dining Podcast, our search for the most mediocre restaurant in America. I'm your host, Michael Ornelas, and I'm your host, Gared's Work. And this week, we went to Denny's at 2 a.m. on a Saturday night at UCLA where there are college students getting out of the clubs, coming to Denny's for their come down and homeless people taking wonderful naps.

We did not realize that the unhoused population near that Denny's would be so high, but we'll get into it when we talk about the atmosphere. For those of you who are listening for the first time, just to give you a little breakdown of what we do here on the Fine Dining Podcast, we are two Midwestern raised dudes. We love these kind of shitty chain restaurants. Because this is what we grew up on, this is where our family events were, this is what we looked forward to. And so we are looking for that perfect 5.00 out of 10, the most mediocre restaurant chain

in America. So we went to Denny's at 2 a.m. on a Saturday and it was chaos. It didn't start off that way, it did not start off that way, but we'll get into it. But for now, our table is ready. See you on the other side. We hope the trash key of mediocrity, Fine Dining, is just Fine Dining, Fine Dining. Two ledgers on the sign aren't shining, Neon flickering irregular timing, Identify the perfect 5.00 out of 10, Fine Dining, Fine Dining.

First impressions. Outside, it's just quiet, empty silence, post apocalyptic silence. The very first thing we saw was a homeless woman passed out, face down. Passing out. Passing out? I didn't hear you. I saw her stirring like, you know that head bob you do when you're like trying to keep your head up?

Yeah. I was seeing that, but by the time that we were inside, she was already gone. Yeah, she just had a big pulse or something. It was a full bag of groceries. She was just chilling. Yeah, it must have been an intense Trader Joe's experience. She was there when we left. Yeah.

Two hours later. So we go inside, it's not busy yet. No, they're like maybe two, three other tables at most. Or as I call it, the calm before the storm. Yes. And now, a word from our totally not made up sponsor. Hi, everyone. It's your boy, Job.

And I am back with a brand new business because my old one, I'm locked up in litigation. Got lawyers talking at me and texting me and calling me and I don't even have a phone. So I don't know how that's possible. But just not stop talking and all I want is some peace and quiet. Don't you want some peace and quiet? Peace and quiet. Yeah. So if you're a restaurant and it's 2 a.m. in the morning and you're anticipating a big

rush of drunk college kids. You just want the calm before the storm. I can give you that. Doesn't that sound nice? Listen to that. You can just picture the tumbleweeds. Well, that's because Job has bottled up some peace and quiet. And I will sell it to you for $995.

I know it sounds expensive. But so are lawyers. Call me and I'll give you some peace and quiet. Just scream my name at the top of your head. That's all you gotta do. Okay, bye. When we go in, I'm kind of taking notes of everything I'm seeing and it's very bright. Like the colors are very bright.

I feel like they're really pimping their specials. I feel like there's a giant board for the strawberry dream cakes and then the brisket all melt sandwich. They have always done this. Yeah, it's the color scheme. I'll say there's more red this time than I've ever seen before. It was very neon. Yeah, this entire experience.

I felt like there's a screenplay writer outside. We're assuming he was a screenplay writer because what else would a man with his length there be doing by UCLA outside at Denny's with the laptop in Los Angeles? So yeah, it and it was quiet, too. It was weirdly quiet. Like don't we normally have background music? Some sounds. All you could hear was nothing and some kitchen noises.

And then we are greeted by what I'm guessing is an 80 year old woman who. And I don't know. Late 70s. No way. No way. She's in her 60s. I just I think maybe she was just very, I guess, skinny so that makes people look older. Gaunt.

Very gaunt. Maybe. There's no way she was less than 70 to me. Maybe. I don't know. You want to fight about it? I'm too tired to fight about it. Oh yeah, that is another part of it.

We're still jet lagging from this. We're basically jet lagged. I woke up at 1 p.m. both of the days since we went. I can't get myself normalized again. And I really can't sleep. I wish I could have slept until one o'clock. I have trouble sleeping in past nine. Like I'm just losing sleep.

That's all. We're just getting old. Yeah. This is our 30s. So we get our seat. We get, you know, right in the middle of the restaurant. Make sure to get right in the middle so we can see everything. We want to see every angle, every perspective.

And both of us just had vantage points on completely different parts of this experience. We did. So, I mean, do we want to, do we want to just jump right into atmosphere? Yeah, why not? Let's do it. Now, if it's your first time listening, we do evaluate all these places based on the atmosphere, service and food. So, let's go ahead and jump in.

Atmosphere. So, the atmosphere of this place, we're talking the wall decorations. We're talking the other patrons. We're talking about just anything visual, usually, that adds to the, or detracts from the experience of being there. I sit down, Garrett sits down, and we're just looking in two different directions. One of the first things I noticed, you sit down, your shorts come up. There's this gaping bite wound on your leg.

What happened? You got it right with your description. Yeah, I got bitten by a dog. Oh, thank God it was a dog. I got bitten by a dog while I was out on a walk through my neighborhood. How do you get bitten by a dog? I don't know. I didn't know that actually happened to people, especially in random like environments that

aren't near dog. I didn't know the dog was there. So, I'm on a walk. I have headphones on. I'm on the phone, and I'm just talking, and I hear barking through the phone, because again, I have headphones on, and I'm not a stranger to hearing barking on the other ends of phone calls. So, I was just like, oh, it's just that.

And then all of a sudden, there's a small maybe 15 to 20 pound dog, little white, not a poodle, not a Bishon. I actually have grown up having three fancy boy Bishons by the names of Cuddles, Maggie and Bella. Shout out. Shout out, Cuddles, Maggie and Bella. And this dog just, it's angry, and it's barking at me. What did you do to it?

I looked like someone maybe that had traumatized it or something. I don't know. I was walking on the sidewalk, and there was a car unloading the backseat, and I hear a growl and barking. The dog flew out of the backseat like I owed it money. Literally. Like it chased me down, ran up to me, barked, bit me on the leg, luckily over my shorts, but it caused, you know, bleeding and a wound.

Pretty gross. And I was on my way to a friend's house, and, you know, they gave me rubbing alcohol. Did you get a rabies shot? No, I did not get a rabies shot. No, I called my insurance number. They have a 24-7 nurse line, and they kind of evaluated how I handled it, and I told them that I got, you know, isopropyl alcohol on it within 10 minutes. I showered within an hour.

Did you, like, send a picture to them or something? No, I just kind of described, like, the size of it. And, you know, they were asking, you know, is the coloration like this? Do you feel numbness? Do you feel whatever? And they kind of deemed it unnecessary for me to go to urgent care because it was at night, so it's not like I could get into the doctor. The next day I got into my general care physician and got antibiotics and stuff, but they didn't

give me a rabies shot or anything like that. So you could have rabies right now? It could be incubating. I've actually been terrified in reading that, like, rabies can incubate for years. Ah, so someday we move to film, we've got a live podcast, your rabies kicks in. Yeah, yeah. You and I are sitting at a booth at a TGI Fridays. We've got a part of the restaurant rented out, and there's a whole bunch of fans just

attending, and then my mouth starts frothing and I bite you in the neck. And that's how we both go. That's how we both go. Hey, that's a way to go. What a finale. Although you'd have to carry on on your own for a while as incubating you. I'd have to live long enough. You'd kill me on the spot, but I'd have to live long enough to give the perfect 5.0

and end the podcast. I mean, yeah. It could have been like the best restaurant experience ever, and then you'd kill me. And then dragged down by your death, you're like, oh, well, the balance is out too, 5.0. Yeah, it would have been a 10, but man, I died, so 5.0. That was the first part of your atmosphere. Yeah, that was my introduction to Denny's gaping leg wound. Okay, but after a good start.

Yeah, so we look around. Yeah, it's got that classic diner feel to it, right? You know, just old photos of buildings on the wall. Like you were seeing the bright lights, but I felt like it was spot like bright lights. It was a dream sequence. It was hazy. It felt sticky. I felt like the table was sticky, the menu was sticky, so it's like everything's bright.

Everything's kind of sticky, which I think is a very appropriate vibe for the chaos that Denny's can bring it to in the morning. Bright and sticky. Now, the first thing that really stood out to me, there was a family. There was a mom and a dad. Oh, yeah, the birthday group. So picture like a nine or 10 year old boy with a dinosaur hoodie on, right? He had like the little green hoodie with the spines coming out of it. It was like a fake stegosaurus hoodie thing.

And his parents are singing him happy birthday over dessert, and then they repeat the birthday song, but this time just played on a phone. They pulled up a YouTube video that sang him happy birthday, which is sweet. But also it's two in the morning. Not only that, the first time they did it, they struggled to remember the kid's name. Did they? Yes. Like they stuttered for a minute and they were like a Caesar. Well, what's going on over there?

What is going on over there? I think, innocently, he ran away from home, got found by these two who couldn't have kids of their own, and they welcome him in with open arms. And he's like, it's my birthday today. And that's why I ran away from home because mom and dad didn't want to give me my one birthday wish. And they're like, well, what's your birthday wish? And he's like, I want to stay up past midnight. And then they go out on an evening full of gambling and debauchery and all that good stuff. Don't forget the kidnapping, the entire premise.

Well, but the kid's like, he's letting himself be kidnapped and they're just trying to give the kid a good time, give him a cigar, you know, all that good stuff. That's why he reeked like cigar smoke, of course. It smelled like smoke in this place. It was like back in the day when you could smoke in a restaurant. And then the finale of this whole night out is they end up at a Denny's at two in the morning and they're like, what's your name, kid? And they kind of forget it halfway through singing happy birthday to him. But Caesar, is that what it was? Caesar.

Yeah, his name was Caesar. He didn't look like a Caesar. He didn't look like a Caesar. But then they brought him back home and they tucked him, not tucked him in, but they brought him back. They snuck him back into his own house. Into his own home. They probably had to chloroform his parents so they wouldn't notice. And they all got the greatest night's sleep and Caesar had the best 10th birthday a little boy could ever hope for.

Happy birthday, Caesar. And that's what's going on over there. What is going on over there? So with the table next to the birthday people, did you see the guy with what looked like a laptop with like tape around it? OK, so yes, but I could only look over in short bursts because every time I turned my head to like scope out, you know, because we're people watching and stuff. Every time I turned my head immediately his gaze met my eyes. It did. I was being watched by this man.

Somehow he and I never made eye contact. He had like a black bandana on from like the chin down. He had an iPad. That's what it was that was propped up. And no idea what he was doing on there. He had no food. Now he didn't eat the entire time. I think he had some coffee, though.

And he got up at one point to use the restroom because he had so much coffee. And what we noticed was there's a baby. There's a baby. And he didn't take it with like it's his baby stroller. So we're like, oh, shit, did he just leave his baby? We have no idea what's going on over there. Nope. Nope.

Not yet. Not yet. No, we have no idea. What is happening in that place. And there was a college girl sitting at the table next to him. Yeah. So we assume there wasn't a baby because there wasn't any look of concern. No commotion.

And this man got up. Just emotionless like, oh yeah, it's normal that he left a baby carriage there. So we're assuming there wasn't a baby in there. So there's no baby. We have no idea what is in there, but whatever it is, it's important because at one point he just, after he comes back from the bathroom, gets up, leaves the iPad, leaves his stuff on the table. Just books it out.

Darts as fast as he can with this baby carriage. We could feel the breeze going right by our table. He just zooms by and exits the Denny's. And we have no idea where he went. We have no idea why. You saw him like because you were facing him. Yeah, no look of concern or anything. There was no look of concern.

No emotion. He just gets up and promptly leaves. I'm just like wondering what's going on over there. So what's going on? Actually, before we get into that, I want to point out one more true detail of this before we go into Bonka's land. Oh yeah. He passes behind me in the window and I'm not looking.

I just see him leave. Okay, as he's still going full stroller speed, he stops, turns, flips off the passed out Asian lady. The woman that we noticed when we got out initially. He takes a full moment just to flip her off and then he leaves. So there's some history there. Yeah, so I don't. Presumably.

Yeah. That or he's not a fan of certain races. That is also a possibility. Maybe that's why he didn't make eye contact with me. Oh, that would explain it. You and that woman look alike both in your ethnicity and in how often you're passed out. So why did he leave Garrett? What is going on over there?

I think he's a hit man. You think in the stroller he had like an arsenal. Oh, of course, including grenades. Yeah, he was gone for grenades, C4, a bunch of guns. And he came back what 15 minutes later? Yeah, 15, 20 minutes. Enough time to kill someone comes back to his spot, posts back up. And yeah, I.

He's unfazed. I think you're at. Yeah, he's emotionless or blood on his hand. So, you know, he did it from a distance. If anything, the only change in the man was he lost his sense of urgency. Yeah, yeah, yeah, he resolved whatever forced him to leave. So I'm imagining that he was tracking someone on his iPad. They showed up to quote unquote, the location and he sped out of there.

And he was like, I've got a second flips off the past out woman. And then he goes to kill his target. I think he just got a Postmates delivery from Denny's and he was. His target was the delivery driver. Oh, that's what he was tracking. He's like, OK, my driver's approaching. So he's so he's on like the Postmates app watching his target approach Denny's. And he's like, oh, well, if I kill them at the Denny's, there's a lot of witnesses.

I got to cut them off when they're right down the street. Yeah, and 20 minutes is enough to. What are the odds? What are the odds that you place an order from Denny's and you get the hit for the driver that you actually are like, oh, that's who I'm supposed to kill? Like, do you think he canceled like 17 orders that matched him with other drivers first? I don't know. Apparently he succeeded.

Yeah. Yeah, he definitely had like a thousand mile stare as soon as he came back. Just like he's he's seen some shit. Yeah, he's done some shit. And that's what was going on over there. OK, so now it's after 2 a.m. It's time for the club scene and all of a sudden empty out and come to Denny's.

Denny's starts smelling like weed and booze. It noticeably it really does. It is a distinct shift. And the first group that came in, they were just, you know, Gen Z kind of college students on their phones. They weren't talking to each other other than to like just show each other pictures and stuff and they would like kind of smile and laugh. But that was that was it.

There wasn't a ton of interaction between them. They were the ones right next to the baby hit man. No, no, no, they were they were in the back. Ah, OK, cowboy hat group. No, next to them. They were the first ones that came in. There was like a girl with long pink hair. OK.

And then there was the cowboy hat group. And then there was the third group that had the the the writing on them. Ah, yes, the lipstick titty girls. Sure. Yeah, there was a group of I mean girls and guys, but specifically the girls all on their cleavage had lipstick writing on them. And it was all the same thing. It was the letter V and then the outline of like lips.

Yeah, like like a like a smooch. And weird what's going on over there? Are we doing this again? We're doing it again. Ah, Denny's. Why do you have so many unanswered questions for us? So what is going on over there, Garrett? I think you had a hypothesis about these girls.

I assume these are all UCLA students. So they're broke. What do you do when you're a broke college student? You sign up. Stop. Stop. You sign up. Yes, you sign up for product testing.

What did you think I was going to say? I thought you were going in a slightly different direction. But which direction is that driving Uber Eats? Oh, yeah. Yeah. So you sign up for like medical. Yeah, because like so many cosmetic products of the United States are tested on animals, which that's not cool.

And when you're a Gen Z, you know, you have heart. You care about the environment. You're doing everything. Gen Z cares about the right things way more than we do. They care a lot. They have values and morals and they actually follow up on that. These women stood for something. They stood for animal rights and they refused to let lipstick be tested on animals.

The lipstick will only be tested on their own bodies. Well, this is our hypothesis at least that they did that and were rewarded with, I don't know, $15 in gift cards to Denny's. Yeah, to Denny's. Like they had to wear lipstick on their bodies, go out clubbing for at least four hours and see if the lipstick faded, which it did. It did. It painted some, but we could tell it was there.

Well, yeah, yeah, yeah, we could tell it was there. But I mean, it didn't look too smeared. But what was crazy about this is I noticed this phenomenon at not one, but two separate tables. Really? I only saw the one table. There was another table. It was three guys and one girl, I believe.

You saw the guy with the big cowboy hat. No, no, no, no, no. The guy with the mesh shirt. The mesh shirt. That table that was kind of hooked around the corner that you absolutely wouldn't have seen, even if you turned your head because of the positioning of it. There was another girl who had that. And the only other thing I remember from that girl is at one point throughout

the evening, she covered one nostril and kind of did that pantomime for, can I have the Coke, please? To one of her table mates. I never actually saw said cocaine. I thought it would have been the grand finale for us to just see rails of cocaine snorted off of a Denny's tabletop. Again, a sticky Denny's tabletop. When you crush up something and you snored it in a public place, chances are

you're going to be kicked out very quickly, whether or not you have a prescription for that substance. And whether or not you stand for something like being anti-animal testing because that same girl who did the nostril thing also had the V and the lips smooches on her. I see nothing wrong with that. She cares for animals and she's doing the cocaine so the kittens don't have to. That's right.

They do test cocaine on cats. Yes. We all know this. Feline cocaine addiction. That is my pet cause. I work at a pet rehab. Yeah. I think that is what was going on.

Oh, there's her band. Feline cocaine. Yeah. That's our band. I will be the drummer and I will only go really fast. And I'll just not show up because I forgot about it. Yeah. Yeah.

Thanks for coming out to see Feline Cokehead and it's just one guy drumming for his life while the other guy didn't show up. Oh God. That's so dumb. That's like, I swear, this is going to be, this is a performance art piece. You see in New York. That is all the, all the like subway drummers that are banging on buckets are also super coke.

This is the shit that gets like off, off Broadway. Oh, okay. This is like stomp, but like the offshoot of stomp. Yes. It's called snort. Yes. Snort the musical. Yeah.

Yeah. That's what was going on over there. Animal testing in cokehead. Okay, Garrett, that's what was going on over there. We've done it three times. Denny's, are you done giving us all these things that we need to hypothesize about because we don't know the actual answer? Can we move on?

Garrett, can we make a deal to move on from what is going on over there? Okay. Let's move on, but Denny's will never stop giving. It is the, what's the opposite of gift? It's the punishment that keeps on giving. Okay. So taking all this atmosphere into account, I know how I feel about it. I feel like it is, it's chaos adjacent, right?

It is almost chaos, but it's all so very clean. Like we didn't witness like any fights. Yeah. What's with it? Like Gen Z is boring. They're not us. They're not us. Like we would.

There would have been a fight. I wouldn't say boring. I would say well behaved. Yeah. They're well behaved. They're respectable. They weren't obviously wasted. They'd stayed seated.

They didn't interact drunkenly with the other patrons like we would have done. Exactly. Like I do. It's chaos adjacent. There's so many things peppered in that we don't know what's going on. It doesn't feel right, but it's not objectively wrong. It's not causing a scene. There were no scenes.

No. Well, other than the guy jetting out with his baby carriage. Which was just weird. Weird. But even that like Gen Z didn't bat an eye. No. I don't think we even really did. We're like oh.

We were just like that's curious. Yeah. So for me when I think of a nice or a good atmosphere to a place I don't think chaos adjacent. I think classy. I think maybe a little fancy. I think. Okay. Not super bright neon lights.

I don't think kitschy. So you want master's like you're going to go to this weekend. Yeah. I want one of the best steak houses in LA to me that is that is tip top atmosphere. It's class. Okay. Okay. So you want master's from Denny's.

I'm not saying I want master's from Denny's. I'm just saying master's is like if I had a third thumb up to give I would. Okay. That doesn't mean that these casual dining restaurants can't get two thumbs up for atmosphere. Some of them have for me I believe. I would actually have to go back and check. But no. Islands.

Islands. Islands got your two. Islands. And it is a little kitschy but it's perfectly in line with what it is. And yes you could argue Denny's chaos chaos adjacent is perfectly in line with what Denny's which I assume is but it's not in line with what Denny's wants to be. It's just in line with what Denny's has come to be. And that's a very important distinction.

Okay. You mentioned that you felt like a dream like state. I felt like I was in a fever dream. And I don't like fever dreams. I didn't hate my time there but I objectively can't say the atmosphere was good. And I can't say it was just average. This atmosphere was wild to me. It was.

And for me that's two thumbs down. Ooh. I'm going to have to completely disagree with you. I know. I know that you embrace the chaos. You live on the wings of a tornado. We chose this place specifically two o'clock in the morning to experience what we experienced. To experience the exact chaos by UCLA, by a nightlife area.

We got what we aimed for. We got more than what we aimed for. We did. In my mind this place far exceeded my expectations. And anytime something excels it gets two thumbs up. But your expectations were of negativity. My expectations were absolute chaos and we got more. Yeah.

So you get two thumbs up. I get two thumbs down. That honestly puts us in a good position to find something right in the middle. But in the meantime, Denny's, you have gotten four thumbs in diverging directions. So good for you. But for now, let's go to a little discussion between your hosts, Michael and Garrett. Hey guys, remember us from a second ago? Well, we're here to break things up by talking about, well, the first five episodes of the

podcast so far. First off, if you're liking it, why don't you go ahead and review us? Give us a five star rating on iTunes. Help us climb those charts. We'd really appreciate it. But in the meantime, we want to talk about the characters that we have come across so far. And one of our favorites, Milk Steve the Cream Lord. Oh, Milk Steve from episode three, the old spaghetti factory.

The man who loved milk with his cream and cream with his milk. He ordered fettuccine alfredo and a big cup of milk. Everything about this man was just cream as cream can be. Now we've had other wacky characters. Well, I won't even say wacky, but the way Keith are the bar for service so far in episode one, the way he fist bumped us is something that will forever be ingrained and enshrined in our hearts as a positive memory. Remember episode two at Buffalo Wild Wings?

We had that guy who slid past our table and gave us gracefully unaware of the size of his girth. He gave us a full 90 degree table rotation. We didn't name him, but we will now call him the rotator from episode two. Episode three, you had Milk Steve and the salad dancer, his date who dunked pieces of her salad into ranch dress. She dunked dry salad and like when I say dunked, I could not use that word anymore appropriately. Dunked it into ranch to have just the wettest meal opposite of milk lord Steve, milk Steve

the cream lord with his glass of milk and his fettuccine alfredo. And it just stood out to me as just the creamiest table that ever kind of reminds me of. Did you ever have Dunkaroos as a kid? I love Dunkaroos. Dunkaroos were the best. They brought them back. They sell them at 7-eleven now. Oh my God.

And oh my gosh, what an actual piece of garbage. I love them. They taste good, but in a way where it's like the frosting kind of burns going down, it's like one of those things you're like, oh, this is so much chemical that I shouldn't be consuming it with this colorful cast of characters that we have introduced at Denny's from the baby carriage guy to the lipstick titty women. Gracefully said to the birthday boy, the 10 year old kid at 2 a.m. at a Denny's. All of this pales in comparison to milk Steve the cream lord.

And that's why we wanted to have a discussion. Who would you cast as milk Steve in a movie? Hmm. For me, it can only be one, the incomparable, the living legend Steve Buscemi. That's who I picture. And if you're listening to this Steve Buscemi, which I know you're not, I also don't know if it's Buscemi or Buscemi. I've heard it said both ways and I want to respect your name because I have respect

for you, but I want to know, do you have respect for cream? Steve Buscemi, please write us at findiningpodcastatgmail.com and I will cast you in a movie that I will write about milk Steve the cream lord, unless Garrett can top this casting choice. Michael McKean from Better Call Saul. He is milk Steve the cream lord. Alright, Michael McKean or Steve Buscemi, I will accept either of those castings for milk Steve the cream lord, the hardest name to say five times fast. Also, Andy Dick, you're running too.

I think Andy Dick just lives like him. And I think that's good enough. I would make a documentary about Andy Dick turning into milk Steve the cream lord for real, like over the course of like two months over committing to the role and just falling into a tub of fettuccine Alfredo that he bathes in as like an Enya CD plays in the background, just covered in cream. We don't want to get sued, so we'll stop there, but. Oh wait, so it's kind of like Jeff Goldblum in the fly, but Andy Dick turns into us.

Turning into fettuccine Alfredo. Oh, this is so stupid. Hey, there's a movie. Anyways, if you have a casting in mind for milk Steve the cream lord, go ahead and send it over to us at fine dining podcast at gmail.com and if it tickles us enough, we will read it on air. We'll be right back. Hey, Garrett and Mike.

This is a Chris. I was going to tell you about my experience when I used to work as a waiter over at Denny's and some of the things that happened once I became a waiter, I was working the overnight chef. There was a guy that was drunk. He was passed out in the bathroom. So me and the manager had to wake this guy up and he took off. And then when I got out of work early in the morning, he was still passed out on the grass

in the front. And, you know, I worked with this one dude. And he was a big vanilla ice fan. I mean, it was like vanilla ice to the extreme and stuff he was playing. It was like when the laser album was out. And there was another co-worker that didn't like the music and they wound up getting into a fight. So like me and the manager had to break them up.

And I think they wound up getting both suspended for a week. So I had to do a lot of work. Yeah, that's done for you, man. Service. I know that we go back and forth on whether or not we should name our waiters. And I think we've settled upon, if they're good, there's nothing. There's no harm in labeling them, right? Yes, we need to point out excellence.

And at Denny's, we had what had to be a 75-year-old woman named Shoray. Shoray. Shoray. Shoray. S-H-O-H-R-E-H. Shoray. She is a veteran of the Denny's trenches. She has seen some shit.

She has been around and she has sworn to secrecy because we actually asked her what the craziest thing she has seen and she started to say and then walked to the back and then came back two minutes later and said, I can't. We just actually kind of funny because when we were looking up for locations, I spoke with the store manager and she was one of the most, she was the most welcoming and informative manager of all that I spoke to. But you may have spoken to the day manager. Yes.

So Shoray, she takes no shit and she is a nose to the grindstone, just hard worker. We came in, she showed us our table. I don't know if that's the thing at the Denny's where the host, at least late at night, the host doubles as the server. Probably. But she was running around to every table. She was busing. She had more energy than both of us combined.

We were practically falling asleep. Oh yeah, I had coffee. That was the only thing keeping me going. Coffee is the only thing keeping me going right now. Yeah. And so just, I could not say enough good things about Shoray. She's very firm on her no bathroom policy. We saw a customer come in and ask to use the restroom and she was like, no public restroom.

Customers only. And the customer was like, please. And she stood her ground. She was just like, nope. Then the same woman went to the front, talked to someone else that gave her the code. Yeah. So she did end up peeing or pooping. But Shoray, she doesn't stand for that.

No, not at all. So Garrett, you had a story. I've got a story. That has to do with Denny's bathrooms. Limited bathroom access. And why Shoray does not like people using the Denny's bathroom. Is it because of people like you? Well, let's just say many years ago, I learned a lesson.

This lesson is do not morning drink with your father and then go to Denny's. Morning drink meaning just a- Like wake up? Yeah, wake up, pound some beers and get some breakfast. So long story short, I go up to a urinal. Wait, so while you're standing at the urinal? So I just think I had a fart. What do you do in the morning?

You gambled and lost. I gambled and lost. It wasn't a fart. Was this, how far into your meal were you? Was this like, you finished everything or like you had to go back to the table? I had to go back to the table. I was part way through. This is why Shoray doesn't like people using the bathroom.

Yeah, back to her. What else? I mean, there isn't that much to say about her. She's just- She will put up with nothing. She's the shining example of competence. Yes. Yeah.

And she reminds me of the waitress at a waffle house in Alabama that's going to call you hun. But she had an accident. I don't know. I feel a feeling she wasn't raised in America, so she didn't get the whole hun thing. She seems like the type of person who refers to where she's from as the homeland. Yeah. Two thumbs up from me for service. Oh, yeah.

Two thumbs up from me. And I think Shoray outperforms Keith in a diner setting at 2 a.m. Interesting. So if you had to pick one, who is the king of the mountain? Keith is still the king of the mountain except at a diner at 2 a.m. Then Shoray takes over. That's so specific. So on our hierarchy of waiters, we've got Day Shift King, Keith, and Night Shift Queen, Shoray.

Yes. Okay. I can agree with that. I don't know if this shift would have been Keith's jam. I don't know if Keith could have handled the pressure. I think Keith would have spent too much time talking to and getting to know the drunk patrons. I also feel like Shoray excelled at juggling. Oh, yeah.

So many responsibilities, so many different types of patrons wanting different things, and she did not drop a ball. Not at all. So two thumbs up, two thumbs up. All right. Well, we've got a very positive Denny's experience so far then. Yes. We have six thumbs up and two thumbs down between the atmosphere and the service.

But here's the but. The food. We'll talk about that in just a minute after this week's. Hey! Munchkin menu musings. Hello, my name is Pustin. I'm four years old, and I'm a Vovina Denny's menu. Uh, what is it?

A dragon? And what is this? Uh, crowns? I don't know what it is. I did this because it looks yummy. That's all of it. What do you think about the Denny's menu? It was pretty good.

I liked it. What would you rate the Denny's menu? Two. Why two? Because I really want to do two. This is Pustin for Munchkin menu musings. Thank you. That's crazy.

You guys are so awesome. Without you, we could not be doing this. So this week's review is from Ig Lizard. Extremely mediocre. Ten out of ten podcast. Or should I say five out of ten? Ha! Came here to listen to some mediocre dudes rating mediocre restaurants,

but did not expect ghost stories. Just in time for Spoogee season. So hey, Ig Lizard, if you hear this, email us at finddiningpodcasts at gmail.com and we'll send you a free t-shirt. Well, until next week, thank you guys again so much. Keep sending those reviews. Keep subscribing.

Keep listening. We love you guys. Without you guys, we would not exist. Thank you. Food. Yum. Garrett, the food was bad. The food?

That's generous. The food was very bad. I've had better food at hospitals. Yeah, with like that like silver tray lid coming off where like all the condensation is actively dripping on your... Like this was sub-hungry man. This was so bad. And I've had Denny's before.

Me too. And it didn't stand out to me as this bad, but what I'm starting to wonder is reviewing these places with an intentionally critical eye. No, this stuff was just bad. Was it? This was bad. It's not impacting my view of food

and now my standards are higher because I'm reviewing it. Maybe other places, but this was bad. Okay, so I guess let's go through what we got because we got a lot of food just to sample a bunch of different things. For appetizers, we got the boneless Nashville hot wings and the zesty nachos, which I got cheeseless and creamless. Yeah, the boneless Nashville hot sauce chicken wings were sad.

They looked, I refuse to eat them. They were like a shade of brown that I have never seen naturally occurring in a food or a sauce. They looked very microwaved. Can't confirm whether or not they were. The taste, here's the thing, wings are good. They resembled the taste of a wing, meaning, you know, they're...

I didn't want to throw it out. I didn't need to spit it out. But when I'm comparing them to other wings, they are bottom tier. And I know who gets wings at a Denny's. Exactly. Well, that's why I ordered them because I was like, this is a curious thing to have on the menu.

Even their starters were, their list of starters that they had available was not, I guess, what I expected from Denny's, but I hadn't really put thought into what an appetizer from Denny's might look like because I always think of Denny's as breakfast food. Now, on the other hand, the zesty nachos, those were extremely okay. They were to the max okay. They were so okay.

They were the okayest. They were the okayest. I think the thing to me that made, turned them from bad to okay I could tell that they had freshly cut up tortillas intimate to make the nacho chips and deep fried them right there in the restaurant. Yes. Now, it was very interesting that you got nachos with no cheese.

I appreciate it as somebody who doesn't like cheese very often. I will eat it on pizza and that's basically it. And which it surprised me like, I feel like you didn't know that you could get nachos without cheese. It looked like canned meat poured out over chips with some sliced up green onions and whatever. That's basically what it was. The meat looked like something that will give you diarrhea at a later date.

Yes, it did. It hasn't hit me yet, but it still could. It tasted like meat. I'm in the incubation period for rabies. I could be in the incubation period for tortilla or Denny's meat diarrhea. On the nachos, I went six and a half out of 10. On the boneless wings, I went four out of 10. Yeah, I'm not rating the wings because I've refused to eat those.

So we'll just give them. Well, you almost accidentally ate them when you were blindfolded eating your dessert and just sticking your fork around the table, which by the way, if you haven't seen it, it made me laugh quite a bit to watch Garrett try to eat a dessert with a blindfold on. We'll get into that later. Very uncoordinated. But you can see that on our Instagram and TikTok at Find Dining Podcast.

Now, I'll give the nachos a good six out of 10. Entrez, this is where we diversified quite a bit. Oh, yeah. I so regret my order. I got the country fried steak. So chicken fried steak with gravy. It looked disgusting. It was so thick.

The amount of gravy that they put on it. Yeah, you got like four seasons of thickness. I barely got any meat. I mean, I did get meat, but it was comparatively. It was like half cream. It was. Yeah. Milk Steve the Cream Lord would have adored my order.

And he would have been like, oh, can I get some milk with this? Like it was the whitest, sauciest plate that I could have had. And then I got a side of eggs, hash browns, English muffin, which all of those were tolerable. I got their bacon, which was truly bad. Bacon is one of the great joys in this world from a flavor standpoint, to me at least, for my tastes. And it was bad.

It was clearly microwave bacon. It was so thin. It wasn't even microwave bacon. It was the pre-cooked bacon. Yeah, yeah. No, that's what I'm talking about. They're like pre-cooked, but then you like heat it up. I just thought you just didn't even microwave.

You just take it out the box and you munch on it. Like an animal. I'm classy. Yeah. And I managed to kind of put some of that bacon, crush it up, put it with some egg, and then I put that on my English muffin and I made a little sandwich. And that was fine.

It was probably a better way to eat the bacon than focusing on it on its own. But overall, my meal was just a sad abomination. I also got to try the double berry banana pancake. And the Choco Nana pancake I had a bite of. The double berry banana pancake. So it has blueberries cooked into it, which, you know, great. And topped with strawberries and bananas.

And every single fruit in this tasted off. Like the strawberries and the blueberries tasted like they had like spice to them. So the fruit was made by the lipstick testing company. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And the banana was overripe. It was a little too mushy. It didn't have a ton of flavor.

So I found myself walking away from even a pancake, which should be pun intended, a grand slam from Denny's. If not at least a home run, right? It should be easy for Denny's to nail it on a pancake. Yeah, the Choco Nana pancakes were better, but they were good by the time we tried them. They had, I guess, dried out. What'd you get?

I got the just regular pancakes, a side of bacon, a side of hash browns, and a side of sourdough microwaved bread. And you loved it, right? Oh, I love the crap out of that. This was the saddest toast I have ever gotten. Yeah. It wasn't toasted.

I swear they just buttered some bread and microwaved it and then plopped it onto my plate. Yeah. It was not even, it wasn't even limp. It couldn't get up at all. It was just a flap. Yeah. It was just a flap of buttered bread flap.

Bread flap. Another phrase that we don't need. Now, before we head into the dessert. Oh, pancakes I had, though. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I will say these were the best Denny's pancakes I have ever had. Okay, so I'm sure that gives them a high rating. The pancakes.

Hash browns were thin and unspectacular. Overall, I would rate my pan. Those are 10 out of 10 pancakes. Okay. These are my new favorite pancakes. They're my new 10 out of 10 pancakes. That's wild. They were amazing.

Okay. The toast, zero out of 10. Okay, so now we're averaging out. The hash browns, I'm going to give those a two out of 10. The bacon, zero out of 10. Absolutely zero. Okay. I was going to go one out of 10 just because I'm kind on the bacon.

I'm not kind of bacon. But do not disrespect my bacon. The chicken fried steak for me was like just this sad shade of gray on the inside. Like gray is the last color you want from meat. I was terrified that you were going to put it in front of me to accidentally eat later. While you were blindfolded. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it was gross.

It was a truly gross food. It was one of those things where you saw me take my first bite and immediately I winced. Like wincing is not the, like a grimace is not the face you should be making in response to eating your food. Also mind you, you chose your first chicken fried steak ever. Yes. At Denny's. At 2 AM.

Well, I'm, I grew up in the South and it always looked like, this is weird. I was never a gravy person until later in life. And then I tried gravy and I was like, this is actually pretty good. So I avoided it while I actually lived in the South, which is probably where I should have tried it. Exactly. That's where you try these things is where they are popular. But I chose a 2 AM Denny's in Westwood, California for my first chicken fried steak and it was disgusting. So before we get into dessert, I want to say what was the highlight of my meal and it had nothing to do with the food.

It had to do with my vantage point into the kitchen where I could see all of a sudden as I'm getting on with my chicken fried steak and I'm wincing, all of a sudden I look up and I see two employees behind the counter straight up, daggering one another. They are grinding. What is daggering? It's like very intense grinding. Like the girl went to stand up and the guy, I was actually very worried about what was happening at first because the guy, like blocked her way and was just kind of like rubbing his crotch into hers. But she was reciprocating and later they took a break together and they were all like giggly with one another.

So they very much seemed like they were on the same wavelength about it, but what the actual fuck, you're at a Denny's. Fuck, I thought we were done with this segment for this week. Denny's gifts us with more. What is going on over there? What is going on over there? What is going on over there? My guess is that the pilot light went out on the stove and they were scrambling around. This is why all my food was lukewarm at best.

Okay. Imagine having just a room temperature chicken fried steak because that's what I had. My stomach is turning right now. And so these two employees, these employees of the month, co-employees of the month as I'll call them, were grinding against one another so hard and vigorously because they were just trying to create a spark to reignite the pilot light. What responsible employees? They are responsible employees and they deserve a raise. Do you think they were the ones making your chicken fried steak?

I think. I wouldn't be surprised if like the chicken fried steak was like brought to Denny's from like a third location in one of their pockets. They just kind of like put it in their pocket, grind it on one another to warm it up just enough and then they throw it on a plate. Oh God, what's the gravy? Oh no. Anyways, that's what I hope was not going on over there. You can actually cook meat by slapping it. Well, did you see the YouTube video?

I did, but it takes a lot of slaps and some very hard slaps. Can you dagger a steak? Can you dagger a steak to an edible temperature? We're asking the hard-hitting questions, people. So then we got dessert and you had to blindfold yourself, which again, go check it out if you haven't on our Instagram and TikTok at Find Dining Podcast. Garrett blindly forking around trying to get this dessert in his mouth is actually. It was really hard. Pretty funny.

We were talking about this before I did it. I was concerned that it was going to be a too easy or B that I would make too much of a mess. Which you kind of did in your hand as you ended up picking up an entire thing of ice cream accidentally and taking it all in one bite. And then it kind of dripped out into your hand. But yeah, you did surprisingly well, but we don't want to dwell on it here. Again, go check out our socials if you want to see that. I, grossly enough, decided in your wake to take a few bites of this thing. The ice cream had dripped from the palm of my hand through my fingers onto the skillet.

So the Panuki in concept, how would you describe it? In just kind of like almost like a, I think it was caramel filled. Okay. Bunt cake with ice cream on top and covered in caramel in like a skillet. Yeah. And like where BJs has the Pizuki where it's like a pie cookie, right? This is a pancake cookie. So yeah, to me, it looked like a little pancake lava cake and inside I thought it was chocolate.

I mean, it may have had both and you just got to bite a caramel and I got to bite a chocolate. My eyes were closed for the entire thing. I think the caramel was on the ice cream. I love it how we're both saying caramel and caramel. Interchangeably. Yeah, I do actually say that. I do too. It's like Chicago's caramel, right?

Because Michigan's caramel. Panuki, the entertainment value alone. You getting a grand applause from the people in the restaurant when you actually got a successful bite. It took forever. I had to like put the, use my hand to eat this thing. Yeah. I liked the taste that I got. You know, I didn't need a ton.

You liked my hand ice cream. I liked your hand ice cream. It was a good, it was a good dessert. I liked that. I think that was the only part of the meal that I would say I even liked. So he had dagger gravy in hand ice cream. I hate this. Oh, we didn't write the dessert though.

We have to write the dessert. Oh yeah, the dessert. I went seven and a half. I don't remember the taste of it much, but I will give this a strong seven out of 10 because I like the way it felt in my hand. Aren't your other senses supposed to be more attuned when you can't see? How do you not remember the taste? I was too worried about how cold it was. Like the last time I had that much ice cream in my hand, I got frostbite.

Wait, for real? Yeah. Okay, here. Have you ever tried to eat an entire quart of ice cream without using utensils? No. I've also never tried to eat an entire quart of ice cream. In a minute. No, this isn't a normal thing.

Why are you presenting this like, oh yeah, have you done this thing? No one's done it. Well, yes, some people have done it. But I have not. When you try to eat ice cream quickly with your hands, you get frostbite. That's terrifying. Yeah. When you say frostbite, you don't mean like your fingers turn black.

You just mean like they're like numb and like hard, like not official frostbite. No, literal frostbite. No, they weren't removed. It was a minor frostbite. All of my fingers just kind of blistered up. I didn't know that frostbite. It's like a minor burn. I think that's just like a freezer burn.

I thought, I didn't know frostbite had extents to it. Yeah, like burns have extents. It burns. It burns. But to me, stick your hand in a bathtub full of ice for 30 seconds. That sounds awful. Then do it for two minutes. Which one's going to be worse?

Two, of course. Yeah. But to me, frostbite is like the infliction that means your fingers have to be amputated. That's severe frostbite. Okay. I'm not going to look this up right now, but I don't believe you. And if one of us is wrong, go ahead and write us and tell us the official definition. Also share with us your experiences of eating ice cream without utensils.

I want to know. And share with us your experiences of getting frostbite. I want to know that. Yeah. So overall food. Yes. On the count of three. One, two, three.

Two thumbs down. Two thumbs down. Yeah. Final rating. But before we go. What? Before we go on, there's another hypothetical question that I have to ask. Why?

The situation that bears addressing. We saw as we were leaving. Yeah. Yeah. So we saw another homeless individual wander on into Denny's and in his hand was a large sheet with a pretty sizable cake on it. Yeah. He had it one hand propped up like a fancy server.

Yeah. He was literally like a waiter holding this cake. And it was a a foot in diameter, probably an eight inch tall. Like it was a hefty cake. And he walks in and he asks for a utensil and they give him a plastic wrapped fork. And he leaves. And I'm like, okay. That's actually not that crazy.

I don't need to know what's going on. We were happy that that man got a utensil to consume his cake. It was a cut and dry case. The answers to the questions had presented themselves. The man had a cake. He wanted to eat it. Yeah. That sounds pretty logical.

But then we leave the restaurant. And what do we see on top of a trash can? The cake with one bite scooped out of it. Not even a bite. Like a chunk. Yeah. Like there was a yeah. It's like there was a hole carved into the center of the cake or something once was just

like what's going on over there. Why? What's going on over there? Why can't we escape? Because we went to Denny's in Westwood at two o'clock in the morning. There's too many unanswered questions. It's a land of uncertainty. What's going on over there?

What do you think it was? I have a theory. I think we might be thinking the same thing. First of all, I think that involves admitting that we may have been wrong on a previous hypothesis. But we're never wrong. I know. But bear with me. We created two separate timelines.

When we hypothesized about the baby carriage guy who zoomed out of the restaurant, we thought hit man. Yeah. I don't know. Well, what if in that baby carriage was this cake? What if the cake was a drop? What if there's something in the cake? What's in the cake?

What is in the cake? That is the question. So what is happening inside that cake? Anyone's guess. Was it drugs? Was it jailbreak tools? Was it jelly beans? Was it a note that said, do you find me cute with three boxes that said yes, no, and maybe?

I like that option. I think this was a romance, a budding romance. That's why the man with the baby stroller flipped off the sleeping woman. She checked the wrong box. No, she's the cake guy's wife. Oh, that's some drama. Garrett. We did it.

We did it. We have figured out what's going on over there. We did it. We did it. Final rating. Okay, Garrett. So the chachki of mediocrity is sitting up here on the wall. It needs a fresh new coat of paint.

And by that, I mean it needs the Denny's logo on it somewhere. So I think it is time for us to do our final ratings. Now what's very interesting here for Denny's, it has scored two thumbs up and two thumbs down for atmosphere, four thumbs up for service, four thumbs down for food. That sounds like a perfect 5.0 to me. I think it's in that realm of average for sure. I don't know where it's going to end up, but it's unlikely that I'm going to end up getting punished this week. I have a gut feeling that this is going to not deviate too far from mediocre, and I will be within that one point buffer on either side. Oh, I agree.

Between a four and a six, so for this week, I'm imagining now I could be wrong. Well, you could throw a complete curveball in my direction, but I think that we will not be drawing from the You Must Bowl this week. Just a reminder to all of you, Garrett had to eat his dessert with a blindfold on because that's what he drew from the You Must Bowl. And if you have any suggestions for stunts that we need to do when we go out to eat for the You Must Bowl, go ahead and write them in. Find Dining Podcast at gmail.com, and if we like them, we will add them to the bowl. Now, do you have a final rating for me? All things considered for Denny's? All things considered. Atmosphere.

Atmosphere. This shit show was exactly what I was in for. Two thumbs up for the atmosphere. Two thumbs up for the service. Sure. Amazing. Unfortunately, two thumbs down for the food and like a strongly weighted strong weight. Two thumbs down for the food.

Okay. This food was abysmal. So even though you gave quite a few more thumbs up than down. I'm going overall 5.03. Okay. So the weighting of those thumbs down pulls it very close. Wow. 5.03.

That's .03 away from the perfect 5.00. But as a reminder, if one of us gives a 5.00, it does not count. The overall average needs to be 5.00 for us to have found the most mediocre restaurant. So unless you go 4.97. I'm going 3.96. Ooh. I, this was, of the five we've been to, this for me was the worst experience. That said, it wasn't one I hated because I can tolerate bad experiences and with, with

a perspective that I don't know, it's interesting. I'm, I'm that guy who always differentiates when someone asks like, what's the best movie? I'll say best or favorite. Cause like, I love the movie bio dome and that is an objectively bad movie. So it's one of those things where like, I can appreciate bad thing. So a 3.96, would I do it again? Absolutely. I don't know if I want to stay up that late again and get the chicken fried steak again

at 2 a.m. Not from Denny's, but that means going on the Chachki of mediocrity for the first time in the zone of mediocrity, that is a four to six at a 4.50. Wow. Denny's American diner. Is that the official name of this place? I think it's something like that. It's Denny's.

Just Denny's. It's Denny's. Denny's, you get a 4.50 out of 10 on the Chachki of mediocrity, which you can see if you go to our Instagram page at find dining podcast. Yeah, I'm doing a lot of shills. That's right. We're on Instagram at find dining podcast. We're on tick tock at find dining podcast and you can email us whatever you want.

Find dining podcast at gmail.com. We might regret that, but I don't know. Maybe we won't. You know what? I'm going to say it again. Go ahead and review us and rate us on iTunes. Give us five stars. Let us know what you like and help us climb those charts.

Send us your Milk Steve Cream Lord artwork, please. I really want to see this. Yeah. Yeah. Send us what you imagine Milk Steve the Cream Lord looks like. What a mess we've made. I feel bad for this man. Yeah.

But hey, he's the cream lord of the zone. He's a lord. Yeah. He is a lord and for that he deserves to be respected. You know what we need to do? We need to purchase a small plot of land to give him an actual lordship. To be a lord? Yeah.

Because we can do that. The land will belong to Milk Steve. Let's do that. Yeah. For sure. Okay. What do you think was way too much? This is way too much.

The confounding nature of everything. Our imaginations were way too much. They went off the rails. Yeah. There were so many things that we just had to speculate on because we will never get solid answers on what happened. Because there are certain things. What are we going to do?

Actually walk over and look inside the baby stroller? Or walk over and be like, hey, why do you have lipstick written on your cleavage? We're not going to do that. That is a question I would ask. Okay. Well, we have different boundaries. I have none. Yeah.

So this week this was way too much award goes to just the chaos of Denny's. We've moved past everything in Denny's and now we get to look to the future. Finally. Are you ready to play the game that you have lost so many times? Hey, I won the time before last. Yeah. 10 months. Sure.

Yeah. Are you ready to play the headline game? Yes. The rules of the headline game are as follows. Michael will present three headlines to Garrett that include this week's restaurant. They can be made up or they can be actual headlines. If Garrett can correctly guess if at least two out of three are real or fake, he will get to select next week's restaurant.

However, if Michael stumps him, he'll select again. Are you ready to play, fellas? I'm ready. All right. Three headlines for you, Garrett. Denny's employees assault reporter over failing restaurant score. Oh, shit. It's good.

We said good things about sure. I'm going to go true because judging by the interesting characters we saw last night, they definitely would have either kicked our ass or made us light the pilot light. Okay. So you guessed true. Second headline. Entire fraternity arrested after holding intoxicated scrotum pageant at Charleston Denny's. Oh, scrotum pageant.

Yep. Oh, God. In their words. It is in quotes. Scrotum pageant. You know what? True. Give me that phrase all day.

Scrotum pageant. All right. Florida man cites stand your ground law after shooting unarmed ex-girlfriend in face at Denny's. Those are all true possible things, but. Hmm. True. So you're going.

I'm going all trues. Okay. Going back through Denny's employees assault reporter over failing restaurant score. Garrett, you said true. And that headline is. True. Wow. My favorite detail is the fact that employees is plural.

So basically the dagger couple come out and beat us down mid meal. Oh, for sure. If they had heard us talking about the food, they'd been like, would you say? And they would have followed us out. And it would have ended well for us. Yeah, it would have. They would have daggered us in a different way. Yeah.

With real daggers. Entire fraternity arrested after holding intoxicated scrotum pageant at Charleston Denny's. Garrett, that is my creativity at work. That one is false. You would guess true. So that is incorrect for number two. Thank you for that phrase for scrotum pageant.

I'm glad I got a true guess from you, though, because it does sound like something that would happen. It does. Like I would completely make scrotum pageant. And lastly, we have Florida man sites stand your ground law after shooting unarmed ex-girlfriend in face at Denny's. You said that was true. Garrett, it is true.

Of course it is. And she survived. What did he shoot her with a BB gun? Nope. Miami man is invoking Florida's controversial stand your ground law in the shooting of his unarmed ex-girlfriend in a restroom at a Denny's restaurant. According to the Miami Herald, accused gunman named redacted is asking a Miami Dade circuit court judge to dismiss the attempted murder charges against him on the grounds that he

was defending himself in fear for his life. He claims that when he followed his former girlfriend into a Denny's woman's bathroom in August 2013, he saw her grab a shiny object out of her purse at which point he opened fire striking her in the face and breaking her jaw. So this man follows her into the bathroom. Yep. And he sees her have something shiny. Yep.

So he followed her into the bathroom where he can stand his ground. Yes, that is the logic that he's trying to present. She survived the attack and is expected to testify in court that he was trying to kill her days before the attack in the midst of a stormy, acrimonious breakup. He reportedly told her I bought a new gun and would love to use it on you and make it look like an accident or self-defense. There is more to the article, but what? That was Miami?

Yes. That's insane. Yeah. We live in the true end times. Wow, that's Florida. Yeah. Anyways, Garrett, so that is the headline game. You guessed three true, two of the three were true, so you do get to pick our next restaurant.

Hey, next week, we are going to Pizza Hut, like one of the dine-in Pizza Huts, like the only dine-in Pizza Hut within a hundred miles of us. So we're going on a road trip to eat at a Pizza Hut. Yes. Because I grew up, I don't know about you, but I grew up eating at Inside Pizza Huts with their amazing lunch buffet. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It looked like the red plastic cups and just, yeah, no, those were awesome growing up.

I don't know if they still have the lunch buffet at. They don't. I called. When I called to ask, that was like the first question. But it is a dine-in. Yes. So we can go and we can eat there, get served, et cetera, et cetera. All right.

Next week, Pizza Hut. If you used to work or still work at a Pizza Hut and you have a crazy story you want to share with us, record a two to three-minute story of employment there and send it to us at findiningpodcast at gmail.com. If we like it, we will feature it on the show. Thanks, everybody, for listening. This has been fine. Tune in next week.

And again, please don't forget, rate us, review us on iTunes, help us climb the charts. We'd really appreciate it. Thanks for listening. Thank you. It's been fine. Have a good one. Hey, while you're at it, why don't you go ahead and make it five stars? Okay.

Thanks. We'll be back next time. Good night. Follow us on TikTok, the same on Instagram, all the socials at Findining Podcast. We have a website FindiningPodcast.com buy our t-shirts. Then put them on. And don't forget, you can always suggest where we go next. Okay!

We're going to find a mediocrity. The search continues. See you next week. I heard my throat a little. Have a fine day.