Toque of the Town: Denny's Real Simple Menu

Denny's Executive Chef Tim Soufan seeks to make good recipes better without shocking his customers.

By Monica Rogers, Contributing Editor -- Chain Leader, 6/1/2003

There will be no smoke and mirrors as long as Tim Soufan is in charge of the menu at Denny’s. “There’s no trickery,” says Soufan, vice president of product development and executive chef for the 1,676-unit chain. “A lot of concepts talk about how they like to do things with a twist. Well, I don’t like twists and neither does Denny’s customer. Yes, I’m a chef, and yes, I’m creative, but the way I demonstrate my creativity is to make food taste delicious through simplicity of flavors and ingredients—not with tricks or twists.”

Denny's Executive Chef Tim Soufan

Such a no-nonsense approach to food fits with Denny’s sharper, one-brand focus. The company, formerly Advantica Restaurant Group, sold its regional Coco’s and Carrows chains last year and renamed itself Denny’s Corporation.

“We’re keenly focused on the fact that our customer comes here not looking for surprises, but expecting great taste and good values,” says Soufan, product development head for the last two and a half years. His resume includes positions at Carlson Restaurants Worldwide, the five-star Royal Monceau Hotel in Paris, Skychef Inc. and Pappas Restaurants.

Translating guest expectations into measurable results is a task Soufan takes very seriously as he orchestrates menus for four dayparts—breakfast, lunch, dinner and late-night—all available 24 hours a day. “My role as head of the development team is really to be an ambassador of food culture: working to understand what the customer is coming for and then immersing myself in giving them that,” he says. “It’s not just about numbers and cents. That would reduce us to a high-volume feed trough. It’s about cultivating a culture of delivering really good, honest food ’round the clock.”

Good, Honest Food
For Soufan and his seven-person development team, that means making good even better. Revisions of mainstays such as French toast (May 2002), tuna salad (July 2003) and Denny’s turkey dinner (July 2003) are current examples.

“What we did with our French toast is a case study of how you can take something simple and ubiquitous and make it into a signature item,” says Soufan. Rather than develop a recipe for “purple French toast, or stuffed French toast,” the team improved the essential ingredients. To replace the Texas toast as the base, Denny’s spent nine months developing a brioche with egg yolk and sugar in the dough. The bread is battered, pan-fried and served with hot syrup.

Because existing syrup-heating equipment didn’t meet Denny’s needs, the company developed its own 3-gallon heater/dispensers capable of holding syrup at the 120 degrees.

Despite the revamped product costing Denny’s almost twice the old recipe, the company did not increase the price on the menu. Soufan says the 30 percent increase in French toast sales has made it worth it. Plus, the new syrup heaters enhance the value and quality appeal of pancakes and waffles. Overall, the company expects product costs to remain in the 23 to 25 percent range.

Talking Turkey
Similarly, Denny’s is currently reworking its turkey dinner. “Our former turkey had a lot of flavors in it that were unnecessary,” Soufan says. “The flavor we’re after is simple, juicy roast turkey just like your mom would cook. No strange marinades or exotic herbs, just plain, good turkey.” Rounding out the plate will be a newly formulated sage stuffing and mashed potatoes that have been enriched with extra cream, milk and butter.

As was the case with the initial rollout of the new French toast product, the switch to the new turkey dinner will happen quietly in July with no broadcast marketing and no menu price increases.

“It’s our plan to do a lot of this sort of thing on the menu so that when the customer orders the dish, the reaction will be, ‘Wow! This is even better than I remembered,’” Soufan explains.

Beyond Breakfast
Soufan has also been focusing on freshening menus to add variety and flavor and fill gaps. Simultaneously, the company continues to communicate that it’s more than a breakfast concept.

While sales percentages split evenly between the four dayparts, according to Senior Vice President of Marketing and Product Development Margaret Jenkins, traffic is still highest at breakfast. “Customers still think of us more for our breakfast items than our lunch and dinner offerings,” Jenkins says.

In an effort to change this, Denny’s five 2003 menu promotions all focus on lunch, dinner and late-night offerings. Starting the year with a lunch focus, the company first promoted soup-salad and soup-sandwich combos, followed by a February Hoagie Melts promo. This included two $5.99 sandwiches, the Philly Melt, thinly sliced beef with sauteed onions and mushrooms and Swiss cheese on a hoagie bun spread with garlic butter, and the Chicken Melt, grilled chicken breast topped with cheddar cheese, lettuce and tomato. The Philly Melt proved most successful, climbing to Top 10 status on the entire menu. It soon will be added to the core menu.

An April appetizer promo focused on two new late-night meals: Mini Burgers ($5.99) and Zesty Nachos ($6.29). And the BBQ Days promotion running May through July features five items: BBQ Chicken Deluxe, $6.99; BBQ Beef Sandwich, $6.19; Smoky Ranch Chicken Salad, $6.19; BBQ St Louis Style Ribs, $9.89; and a Chicken and Ribs Combo, $8.89.

Soufan and his team developed a new signature barbecue glaze for all of the BBQ Days dishes. “Barbecue is not new to the U.S. population, but we believe this new glaze will help us stand out and differentiate our barbecue from other mainstream offerings,” he says.

“Word of mouth works,” says restaurant analyst Mary Gilbert, managing director of Beverly Hills, Calif.-based Imperial Capital LLC. “As long as Denny’s continues to keep the focus on improving quality, they should not have a problem increasing traffic at lunch and dinner.”

Denny’s reports that check averages are up 2.5 percent year-to-date at press time. Of this increase, it attributes 1.2 percent to pricing and 1.3 percent to new menu items and guests trading up to lunch and dinner items.

Atypical Denny’s
Despite his focus on simplicity, Soufan recognizes that consumer tastes have changed. “Menu diversity and more sophisticated tastes have reached small-town USA,” Soufan says. “People are demanding higher flavor profiles and more exotic ingredients.” Hence, the new barbecue.

As well, the pico de gallo topping Denny’s nachos is seasoned with fresh lime, jalapeño and cilantro. “You will see many more atypical products rolled out in the near future,” he adds.

Determining where new product focus should be is a marketing mandate. In fact, product development is a division of Denny’s marketing department. Offices adjoin, and there is much communication back and forth. “We don’t do anything without first understanding why we are doing it.” Soufan explains. As a new product moves from ideation through to testing, “we monitor the performance from the perspective of many disciplines—purchasing, marketing, operations, development. If something falls short, we won’t move forward with a product. The cost would be tremendous.”

Ideas come through many channels. “I meet with chefs, talk to suppliers, look at marketing research and open the door wide to all sorts of information,” says Soufan. “The key thing is to be very objective. To listen—listen to everyone.”

But despite the many check-off points and close parameters, Soufan says as dishes evolve, “there are many pleasant surprises that happen.” This “art side” of cooking is a big part of what drew Soufan into the career in the first place. “Just as a painter loses himself in the painting, I lose myself in the food. This pleasure is what drew me into cooking. It’s a great way to express myself.”

He also enjoys the thrill of seeing these come together on such a large scale. “You can talk many ways about the phenomenon of this puzzle we call product development. I’m just one part of the puzzle. It’s fascinating to see everything coming together. It’s just a beautiful thing.”