The South Carolina restaurant chain that hit a marketing home run with its Grand Slam breakfast platter in 1977 is cutting its lineup, just as the World Series picks up between the Yankees and the Dodgers — the same teams that faced off in the Fall Classic that year. Then, as now, the timing is purely coincidental. Spartanburg-based Denny’s Corp.
announced last week it will shut down as many as 150 of its least-productive diners, or about 10 percent of the total, under a plan to reverse a revenue slide and boost sales at its stronger performers. About half of the slumping restaurants will go dark by the end of the year, with the rest to follow in 2025. The specific locations were not disclosed.
“We believe this is absolutely the right thing to do to make our system stronger,” CEO Kelli Valade said at an Oct. 22 meeting with stock analysts, franchisees and investors. TGI Fridays says thanks as it exits the Charleston market on a Tuesday She said the latest brick-and-mortar retrenchment — the Denny's footprint has shrunk by nearly 9 percent since 2017 — is a key piece of a "transformation" plan to increase the average annual revenue to $2.
2 million per restaurant from $1.9 million over the next few years. The strategy also calls for opening new, higher-grossing locations to offset the shuttered money-losers and a targeted remodeling program aimed at aging diners in need of an facelift "to get the flywheel turning," Valade said.
The investor presentation Tuesday imme.