Denny's Family Restaurant - Hobson Street

Most people know Denny's as *THE* 24/7 restaurant that originated from America. The style of food is best described as a diner, or "greasy spoon" family place, where the humble blue collar family would go for some good, honest food any time of the day. This franchise landed here in New Zealand about 10-15 years ago, and did have a very promising beginning, their food was inexpensive and decent, and were the pioneers of the 24/7 food scene. I remember back in High School (Form 5/Year 11) a whole group of us would go in at 3am in the morning after a night of rushing though several assignments, as they were the only place that's still open. Fast forward by a decade, and the scene has changed. You now have Esquires (coffee/cafe) having many 24/7 locations around, many asian restaurant opening till 3-4am, and various Countdowns in Auckland bringing the 24/7 convenience to locals... in short, you have a much wider variety of choices. I must preface this review/rave by saying that I have eaten here at this Denny's since they first opened, however over the years it dropped down to a point where "I won't come here unless a friend from out of town wants this Denny's "experience", or when I absolutely am desperate for food when everywhere else is closed". Food, is average at best, sub-par most of the time, and depending on what you order, sometimes terrible. All day breakfast is their "thing" (kind of an American diner's signature), and their Eggs Benedict is actually... average. Toasted ciabatta buns, on surprisingly generous amounts of smoked salmon, on poached eggs with brought-from-a-big-catering-box Hollandaise sauce that will never ever split even if you try at an atomic level. Some very greasy "home-style" hashed browns makes it to the plate as well. Pancakes are usually a safe bet, as you would have to work extra hard to stuff them up. I would, however, avoid their scrambled-to-hell-and-back with overcooked rubbery bits scrambled eggs (a mistake which I never made again after ordering a budget breakfast on a previous occation). Burgers and sandwiches are so-so, again, on the greasy side with a lack of flavour. Try to avoid their pasta dishes however, as the quality varys so much, you might get undercooked crunchy pasta one day, and overcooked mushed up mess the next. Of course, you could order their bottomless cups of coffee (although I believe they restrict that to only breakfast/morning service time now)... but all you get is some bitter, black-coloured water from a filter that's probabally been sitting overnight. I could barely finish one cup, let alone a bottomless amount. With food quality like this, the whole menu needs to be half the price. Everything is just so overpriced. In fact, they know this and started running promotions such as "half price breakfast", "half price sandwichs and burgers", "$2 budget breakfast" to name a few banners that graced the outside windows for the past few months. And even then, it's still not anywhere near good value for money. Service is again, a random luck of the draw. During the day the wait staff are more attentive and friendly, but once past the dinner period... zombies attacked and became your servers. That is to say, they don't care less about you being there or not, close to impossible to flag down attention, in short, they would rather want to be home than working. I can go on and on... but I won't. Nearly everyone that I know almost never go to Denny's, and those that do have almost similar experience as I do. It's a shame, they started off great a decade and a half ago, and been going downhill ever since. In fact as I mentioned earlier, friends from out of town keep hearing about it that they go just to see for themselves... and would never go back again after we leave. If it's 3am in the morning, you are really hungry, and absolutely have to, then perhaps go in and hope you don't remember what or why you visited the morning after. If all you want is a cup of coffee, stop and head to the Esquires right downstairs (which is also 24/7) instead. The Chargrill Kebab Burger restaurant directly downstairs also offers a viable alternative food wise (wood-fired pizzas, kebabs and burgers mainly), slightly cheaper, and also open 24/7.