ALWAYS OPEN 24/7

LEADING A FAMILY-RUN RESTAURANT

Staff is Key

Running a restaurant isn’t an easy task. If we’re defining a well-run restaurant, it boils down to consistently giving good service and food. That’s simple enough, yet a laborious endeavor. Now, consider a restaurant that never closes and how much more difficult it is to look after. The restaurant’s overseeing manager must always prepare for the following shift, day, and upcoming week. Personal free time and work quickly become interchangeable, and moreover, life revolves itself around the fluid environment of a restaurant. Even so, it almost always boils down to having a great staff. The food service industry has a habit of churning out people like there’s no tomorrow. Part of the high turnover rate problem comes down to the lack of qualifications required for job entry. Anyone from a high school kid to an ex-convict can make and serve you food. It was, to some degree, how each of my family members got their start in the first place. Nonetheless, a successful manager must create a family-like work environment. In Denny’s case, it was right on our doorstep.

There was no secret recipe. The difference was the staff.

Building a Family Business

One by one, each of my mother’s siblings began working at Denny’s. It usually always played out the same, with my mother coercing them into coming in and helping out for a day. The majority of her brothers and sisters had since left the original restaurant in Vienna upon my mother’s transition into a managerial role at Denny’s.

Gloria was the first to come in and quickly became a waitress. Interestingly enough, she met her husband within the first week of working at the restaurant. He was a customer with a pick-up line that won my aunt over in an instant. Celeo and Franklin both came in as cooks shortly after. They both, in time, met their respective partners at Denny’s, who worked as waitresses. In a few years, the restaurant staff was mainly compiled of immediate family members and in-laws.

The restaurant quickly turned into a hot commodity in the ensuing years. Not only did the one-time customers of the past return, but now we were taking advantage of the large Latino community in Manassas. To this day, Latinos remain one of our largest customer demographics. There was no secret recipe. The difference was the staff. Granted, we could reach a more diverse crowd, but our dedication to consistently giving good service and food is what brought customers back.

My mother’s ideals carried a different weight to her brothers and sisters. They knew her struggle and sacrifice. It was only natural for them to follow her lead. Our family took pride in treating Denny’s as if we owned it. We never looked back in the two decades that followed, and now the restaurant is one of the highest earners for the company, a feat that we as a family can be proud to share.

Daily Routine

My mother’s routine begins each morning around 6:00 a.m., in which she arrives to work at Denny’s. The restaurant is quiet and empty, with only a few customers frequenting in and out. By this point, the late-night shift has all gone home, and either one of my aunts is working tables in the front. The early hours are the ideal times to inspect food temperatures and organize the cash register.

By 9:00 a.m., everything is all prepared and ready for the day of business. My mother spends the entirety of her morning in the front end of the restaurant. Her tasks fluctuate depending on the available staff and overall business level. It’s very typical for her to be serving tables at one moment then suddenly running to-go orders and the cash register. The morning shift is by far the most demanding period of the day. The table turnover rate is a high and a neverending cycle. By the mid-afternoon, the restaurant has settled down, and the morning staff begins sidework (a set of restaurant preparations).

My mother then moves into the kitchen to cover for the next cook that arrives at 5:00 p.m. Before long the night manager, Franklin, arrives, allowing my mother to unwind and get her first meal of the day. The night shift now commences, and my mother relocates to the office, where she counts and organizes the morning earnings. Her schedule ends at 7:00 p.m., but she chooses to ignore it instead. The next few hours, she sits at the counter, ready and waiting to help Franklin if things get out of hand. Franklin will often suggest for her to call it a day and go home, to no avail. After the night rush ends, my mother arrives home, at last, to sleep and repeat it all over again.

Dealing with Tragedy

Denny’s is uniquely situated as a restaurant that is open every day of the calendar year, without exception. We’re open on New Year’s Eve, Thanksgiving, and Christmas Day. The restaurant’s biggest revenue days usually fall on one of the major holidays. Christmas, in particular, is the restaurant’s busiest day, both in terms of business and revenue.

No one is ever quite prepared to handle tragedy, let alone on a holiday of all days. In the near two decades of working at Denny’s, our family had yet to face what would come next.

On the fateful early morning of December 26, 2019, a DoorDash delivery man, Yusuf Ozgur, was shot and killed at the restaurant’s front entrance. Nothing on such a scale of this tragedy had occurred under our management in the two decades that preceded it. Everyone in the restaurant was shell shocked. The restaurant staff had just completed another successful Christmas Day and switched from

morning to late-night shift. Christmas Day is unique in the sense that the morning shift works way beyond the traditional time slot. In this particular case, the majority, if not all, of our family left a little past midnight. The shooting would occur two hours later.

Out of respect for the Ozgur family, I’ve chosen to omit the details surrounding the tragic events that occurred on December 26, 2019. However, I would like to take a moment to speak on the man’s character. Yusuf Ozgur frequented Denny’s often during late-night shifts to pick up orders for his job at DoorDash. Christmas Day was no different for him, as he came throughout the day delivering orders for us. There was underlying respect between the delivery drivers and the restaurant staff. Each of us was working hard to make money for our families. Yusuf Ozgur was a loving father who had once himself emigrated from Turkey in the 1970s. In many ways, Yusuf Ozgur exemplifies the themes of America’s Always Open.

My mother was sound asleep when she received a call from the police informing her of the events that had just transpired. She headed to Denny’s immediately. The scene was chaotic, but it would fall on her shoulders to take responsibility for the restaurant and its late-night staff. The tragedy was traumatizing for all parties involved, with a handful of waitresses caught in the middle of it. They were all sent home after talking with the police. Under normal circumstances, the restaurant is cleaned thoroughly after a shift by each position level. The restaurant was a mess, with only my mother left to clean up. Both of my uncles came in to lend a hand, with the trio working into the late afternoon to restore normalcy.

COVID-19

Following the tragic events that occurred on Christmas Day 2019, the restaurant was subject to the aftermath of scrutinization and distrust. The business was noticeably slower heading into the new year, but it would only mark the beginning of an out-of-the-ordinary year.

Denny’s would temporarily close in March of 2020, as the whole world would shut down following the outbreak of COVID-19. The entire staff, barring my mother, was left without a job and caught in the storm of government relief funding. Despite the circumstances, the restaurant continued forward, transitioning to carry-out orders only. An influx of regulars would continue to frequent the restaurant as a show of support. If there was ever a consolation, tough times brought out the best in the community that our Denny’s location worked so hard to form throughout the years. However, even if business continued forward, there only remained a cook and my mother to cover the restaurant’s entire responsibilities.

My mother would take orders, prepare and deliver food, and wash dishes mostly on her own. There was no room to complain, only continue to give good service and food. A pandemic didn’t lessen her resolve to stick to a set of lifelong ideals. My mother’s tenacity has consistently shown itself throughout her long career, which in large part contributed to an enviable position within the company. Eventually, other family members came in and helped out to ease the weight of her duties.

My family members were still unemployed, but that didn’t lessen their resolve to support my mother in dire times. The take-away message is that our experiences at Denny’s invariably united us, and in turn, allowed us to be closer as a family. In September 2020, the restaurant allowed customers to eat inside in a limited capacity. Each of my mother’s brothers and sisters got their jobs back at Denny’s, along with the return of many of our customers. There is still much uncertainty for the future. COVID-19 is still an ongoing situation; however, we always remain open and willing to serve our customers.