Diversity
...It was originally named Danny's Donuts. Impressive profits lead to menu expanding, name changing, and a franchising program being developed. By 1967 Denny's became an international company by opening a restaurant in Acapulco, Mexico. By the year 1981, over 1000 restaurants strong, Denny's has become the nation's leading family restaurant.
Denny's is the nation's largest full service family restaurant chain, operating more than 1600 restaurants system-wide. Nearly half of Denny's restaurants are franchised owned and operated. In 1997, Denny's ranked tenth out of over 700 franchises in Success Magazine's Franchise Gold 100; it ranked 17th out of 350 franchises in Franchise Time's Top 200 list; and it ranked first in the family restaurant category in Entrepreneur Magazine's Franchise 500, which reviewed 861 franchises.
However, Denny's wasn't ready for the change of time. By 1991 trouble started and top management at Flagstar Companies (now Advantica Restaurant Group, Inc)
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was determined to Contest the lawsuits filed against them. Even as evidence of wrongdoing piled up nationwide, Flagstar CEO Jerry Richardson continued to take the position that very little wrong had been done Richardson answered the question (If our African-American guests were mistreated, was it because of racism?) with the response " I can't tell you. It's impossible to know what's in a person's heart."
Finally Flagstar conceded a defeat and settled the class-action suits, consolidating one of them with a case originally settled in 1993 with the U.S. Government. By December 1995, Denny's had paid out $54 million to some 295,000 customers and their lawyers.
Indeed, in 1993 Denny's sales declined. The predicament that occurred is a perfect example of a bad situation that became worse before it could become better. The racism at Denny's was ugly because racism is always...
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