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- Denny's #6212
- Albuquerque, New Mexico
- 23 January 2000
- 4:15pm MST
- 2400 San Mateo Blvd. NE, I-40 exit 161
- (505) 884-6574
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- Attendees: P7A77, Amie, Jon Vanderford
- Wait-person(s): Chad
- What we ate: P7A77 - Classic Double-Decker Burger, Fries, Coke; Amie - Mozzarella Sicks, Gardenburger, Coke; Jon - Garlic Mushroom Burger (no pickles, no tomatoes), Fries, Coke
- Finally, the promised land. Tho' it wasn't my shift to drive, so Weird Al wasn't playing. We noticed that Albuquerque looks a whole heck of a lot like Tucson. My burger was a Bodacious Burger! It was Preposterously Prodigious! It was Outrageously Delicious! But to me, it just looked like a Big Boy Rip-Off! Amie's Gardenburger didn't come with cucumbers. Why do they lie about cucumbers? It always says cucumbers on the menu, yet we have yet to have them appear on the sandwich.
- They had some weird Burma-Shave style signs in there, which read "Time to Relax / Time for a Treat / Try our Coffee / It can't be Beat". Not sure how much coffee is supposed to relax you, but maybe they serve it with a side of crystal meth and a pile of sugar. This Denny's had some glass block partitions and fancy patterned booths. High-class stuff. While I was crouched down on the ground to get a photo of the signs and booths, our waiter asks me if I slipped and was building a case to sue them. Uh, yeah. Tho' I gotta be careful what I say about the waitstaff on these pages now, cuz I recently got an email yelling at me and threatening to sue me because I made some not-so-kind remarks about a not-so-good waiter a while back. People these days.
- I'd like to take this space to comment about how I get all these emails from waiters and managers saying that they have all sorts of free stuff and food to give me if I go to their restaurants (which are always thousands of miles away from anywhere I'm even thinking of going in the next year or so), yet when I go to a restaurant, people are usually very hesitant to give me anything. Though, I think Chad would have given us something better, except that their very tall manager was on duty and they didn't want to get fired. They figure she's about 6'6, but they're too afraid to ask.
- WAY: no
- Free Stuff: menu
- Video: Mile High Club Part VI (~1.5MB)
- [NOTE: If you want to view the entirety of the video series, visit the original entries in the Chronological Reviews]
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- Denny's #6899
- Deming, New Mexico
- 20 January 2000
- 9:39pm MST
- 120 North Platinum
- (505) 546-2258
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- Attendees: P7A77
- Wait-person(s): Ana
- What we ate: nothing
- This visit sucked. Couldn't get anything out of them, and it was even an ordeal to get the damn photo.
- Our next stop was going to be Las Cruces, but we took the wrong road through town and missed it. So the video for this entry takes place about three hours later in a little town the locals call "TOC".
- WAY: no
- Free Stuff: nothing
- Video: Mile High Club Part III (~1.4MB)
- [NOTE: If you want to view the entirety of the video series, visit the original entries in the Chronological Reviews]
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- Denny's #0374
- Las Cruces, New Mexico
- 23 January 2000
- 8:25pm MST
- 740 S. Main St., 2 miles north of I-10
- (505) 524-0791
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- Attendees: P7A77, Amie, Jon Vanderford
- Wait-person(s): Dinah
- What we ate: P7A77 - Rainbow Sherbet Vanilla Shake; Amie - Moonquake Shake (banana, coffee, and chocolate sauce); Jon - Strawberry Shake (with real strawberries)
- Well, hell. This is one difficult Denny's to find. We missed it on the way up (we got on Main Street too far north, and by the time we realized it, it was too late), so we took the main freeway on the way down, and looked for Main Street. No main street. Once we got out of town we figured we had gone too far, so we drove back the initial way we had gone through town, but this time took Main Street the other direction. Then it ended and became Water Street (or something). Then it was Main Street again. And there was the neon Denny's sign. In the old-style text. A rarity, to be sure.
- Dinah was almost more waitress than we could handle. Meaning, she was great, not that she was overly large or anything. She not only offered to make us custom shakes (mainly because she wasn't sure what they had and didn't want to check), but she suggested the "Moonquake" variety to Amie. How 'bout that! I figured I'd be able to get some really keen free stuff out of her, but I think I crossed the line from "cute & quirky" to "goddamned annoying", because she finally just gave me her Employee Safety Bingo Card to get me the hell out of there. Sorry, Dinah.
- Still, though, a satisfactory coda to a Denny's-filled weekend.
- WAY: Bob (cook)
- Free Stuff: Employee Safety Bingo Card
- Video: Mile High Club Part VII (~5.3MB)
- [NOTE: If you want to view the entirety of the video series, visit the original entries in the Chronological Reviews]
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- Denny's #7152
- Lordsburg, New Mexico
- 20 January 2000
- 8:30pm MST
- 1028 West Motel Drive
- (505) 542-3864
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- Attendees: P7A77, Amie, Jon Vanderford
- Wait-person(s): Rubin
- What we ate: nothing
- Well, why go through talking about this entry, since I have pretty much the whole thing on video? This is typical of a visit when we don't sit down and eat. For those who aren't going to view the video, we pretty much ran in, yelled at them about the lunar eclipse, got the free stuff, got video of the eclipse, and went away.
- Though something not included in the video is when we stopped for gas. While waiting in line to pay, I noticed a display of discounted videos. I just couldn't resist picking up "Welcome to Spring Break", based primarily on the back cover description. It reads better if you do it in that "movie preview guy" type of voice. Or if you happen to know one of the two people who do the voice-overs for all the trailers, get him to read it for you.
- "Spring break is usually the time for an old college tradition: hitting the beach for a little sun, surf, suds, and wet T-shirt contests ... a nonstop party of the wildest kind. But, this year, there's a difference. This year, one of the local bikers, Ed Diablo, has just been given "the chair." His last words were, "I swear I'll come back for revenge," which could explain the mounting body count of grisly murders being piled up by a terrifying biker with a shocking way of killing his victims -- more shocking even than the electric chair. His targets are pretty girls, Peeping Toms, anybody who gets in the way. Local authorities, like the sadistic police chief, the town's alcoholic doctor, and a sinister minister, keep the killings under wraps while the rest of the town is removing theirs. It's a spine-tingling, thrill-a-minute adventure as Gail, a victim's sister, and football star Skip Banacheck single-mindedly run down the mysterious biker from hell, with the rowdy madness and maximum exposure of spring break happening all around them."
- I mean, really, how can you turn down that? Not only does it pretty much tell you every plot point and work in at every opportunity the fact that there will be plenty of nakedness, but the protagonists single-mindedly, not single-handedly, track down the killer. Best $4.99 I ever spent.
- WAY: no
- Free Stuff: menus
- Video: Mile High Club Part II (~6.4MB)
- [NOTE: If you want to view the entirety of the video series, visit the original entries in the Chronological Reviews]
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- Denny's #6213
- Santa Fe, New Mexico
- 21 January 2000
- 3:30am MST
- 3004 Cerrillos Rd. at Hwy. 85, I-25 N
- (505) 471-2152
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- Attendees: P7A77, Amie
- Wait-person(s): undetermined
- What we ate: P7A77 - Coke; Amie - Coke
- Jon was sleeping in the car, so he doesn't get credit for this one. This place sure was crowded, especially considering the late hour. Tho' in Tucson the bars close at 1am, so they could have a more realistic closing time in Santa Fe. It was a good mix of people... young punks crowded into booths, old-timers at the counter... there was no smoking, however, which made the mix and density a bit odd. Maybe no place else was open.
- According to Amie, the women's restroom was beyond vile. Toilet paper on the floor, sticky toilet seats, and vomit in the stalls. Thankfully, the men's restroom was better by comparison.
- I was a bit miffed because I missed all four Denny's in Albuquerque. I even made a special point to put have Weird Al's magnum opus of the same name playing on the CD player. Damnit. I vowed to get at least one on the way back.
- WAY: undetermined
- Free Stuff: a napkin drawing of someone sitting a few seats down that had been left at the counter
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- Denny's #6981
- Socorro, New Mexico
- 21 January 2000
- 12:45am MST
- 913 California St. NW, I-25 exit 150
- (505) 835-2504
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- Attendees: P7A77, Amie, Jon Vanderford
- Wait-person(s): Nicolas
- What we ate: P7A77 - Veggie Cheese Omelette, Coffee, Water; Amie - Bagel & Cream Cheese, Hashbrowns, Water; Jon - All-American Slam, Orange Juice, Water
- On our way north there was border patrol stop. We're talking a couple hundred miles into the state. Which seems sort of silly. I mean, once you get over the border, wouldn't you take side roads if you knew there was a big ol' honkin' stop on the freeway? Another odd thing about New Mexico is that at most exits they have big signs saying how many "modern" facilities they have at this exit. I can understand having to say that you have modern gas stations and restrooms, but wouldn't it just be good enough to have a little sign that says as much, and not these huge billboard-size things that list exactly how many? And one more thing: they have signs that say "Gusty Winds May Exist". How very Zen.
- I saw that across the parking lot from the Denny's was a store that seemed to sell nothing but beef jerky. Mmm. I love beef jerky. What right-thinking person doesn't? Fortunately for Amie and Jon (re: the cheese fries incident), it was closed.
- We also stopped for gas in Socorro. No video this time, but they had little television monitors at the pumps. So I got to watch Mama's Family as I fueled up. Is this sort of thing really necessary in our society?
- This Denny's had a very strong sulphur smell. We learned that they had a busted pipe that wouldn't be fixed for quite some time. Bleh.
- Nicolas was fun. He was from France. And rather than ask all the specifics about if we wanted fries or hashbrowns or how we wanted the eggs and whatnot, he just asked if we wanted it like it was on the menu. We commented that if it looks like that, they deserve an extra tip, since usually not even the french fries look like they do on the menu.
- A while later we heard the waiter and cook bickering about the All-American Slam. Something about the eggs. We hoped the cook wasn't going to spit in the eggs or something, and also doubted it would look anything like the menu now. Amie also started drinking Jon's orange juice. Her reason was that she meant to order some of her own and she thought that she did and it was hers. We were all a bit tired by this point.
- We shouldn't have doubted the cook. The food arrived quickly and looked, dare I say it, perfect. The photo doesn't do it justice, but the Veggie Cheese Omelette couldn't have looked any better. Just the right balance of everything, overflowing enough to look full and appetizing, but not too much to be messy. Damn tasty, too. Hashbrowns cooked to perfection. I don't know who the cook was, but he should get some sort of recognition.
- When it came time to get the free stuff, I explained to Nicolas what it was all about, and he went on a quest to find stuff. He came back with a handful of crayons and asked if we had any of those. We said yes, we did, but that was okay. Then he pulled out of his pocket a coffee table display. And a name tag. And a kid's menu magazine. And ZOOBS! Bless your heart, Nicolas! On top of that, Nicolas was our best candidate for a WAY, tho' he denied it.
- So make sure you stop by this Denny's late at night, for you just might find Nicolas and the cook. You won't be disappointed.
- WAY: Nicolas
- Free Stuff: crayons, coffee table display, name tag, kid's magazine, ZOOBS
- Video: Mile High Club Part IV (~1.7MB)
- [NOTE: If you want to view the entirety of the video series, visit the original entries in the Chronological Reviews]
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CA |
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GA |
IL |
IN |
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MD |
MI |
MO |
MT |
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NM |
NC |
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PA |
SC |
SD |
TN |
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VT |
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