Iconic late-night NJ hangout announces closures

🍔 Iconic late-night spot announces closings
🍔 Denny's is the latest to suffer pandemic sales drop
🍔 Six locations in New Jersey

After a night out, many of us have found ourselves at Denny's restaurant a time or two.

There is nothing quite like a plate of Loaded Nacho Tots, a Grand Slamwich or a stack of Denny's pancakes to soak up a belly of adult beverages and ward off a next day hangover.

Alas, the iconic late-night hangout has announced major closures and becomes the latest restaurant chain unable to recover from pandemic slowdowns.

Denny's announced to investors on Tuesday they will close 150 of its lowest-performing restaurants in an effort to turn around the brand’s flagging sales.

That amounts to about 10% of the company's total operating restaurants. About half of the closures will happen this year and the rest in 2025.

Denny's never recovered from the pandemic

Stephen Dunn, Denny’s executive vice president and chief global development officer, says many of the locations that will close saw traffic shifts (fewer customers) during the pandemic. In most of those locations, their customer base has not returned.

Restaurant inflation is outpacing grocery price inflation, which makes it harder for some customers to justify eating out, Dunn said. And when they do eat out, they often head to fast-casual brands like Chipotle or fast-food chains.

Denny's said family dining — the category in which it competes — has lost the most customer traffic since 2020.

Location and age issues

Another challenge for Denny's is the location of many of their restaurants and the age of the buildings.

“Some of these restaurants can be very old,” Dunn said during the investor meeting. “You think of a 70-year-old plus brand. We have a lot of restaurants that have been out there for a very long time.”

Dunn also said in some cases, the restaurants are no longer in good locations.

Neighborhoods change, and as they do, the residents that once made up the local Denny's customer base are gone.

Socioeconomic factors can also contribute to a restaurant's sale's decline.

Which restaurants will close?

Denny's was not prepared to detail which locations are being targeted for closures and those decisions are still being made.

There are six Denny's locations in New Jersey.

They are located in:

✔ Avenel
✔ Bordentown
✔ East Brunswick
✔ Galloway
✔ Northfield
✔ Vineland

As of Wednesday, all locations are still listed as operating in New Jersey.

Content from the Associated Press was used in this article.

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