QUEST FOR THE HOLY GRILL
                  College senior's quandary during a 'tour de fries':
                           So many Denny's, so little time

                                  by Teresa Gubbins
                       Staff Writer of the Dallas Morning News
                                Monday, March 25, 1996

  You could say that Jason Pfaff's "Project: Denny's" is the story of a young 
man's quest -- his quixotic search for meaning in a postmodern, cookie-cutter 
world.  Or you could just tell it like it is.  This overamped Ohio college senior 
is just trying to scam free swag from Denny's.
  Mr. Pfaff (pronounced Faff) touched down last week in Dallas en route from Ohio 
to Memphis, Tenn., the latest leg on his monthlong Project: Denny's tour, a half-
baked concept in which he'll visit all the Denny's restaurants in the world -- or 
as many as he can -- "getting lots of free stuff along the way."
  Mr. Pfaff, a 22-year-old architecture major at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, 
was working part time at Denny's when he got the idea to visit each one.  "I used 
to work at the Denny's in Toledo on the graveyard shift -- the ONLY shift," he 
says.  "Some customers came in from Ann Arbor [Mich.].  They had stopped at every 
Denny's along the way.  So I gave them some free buttons."
  "It made me want to do the same thing -- to travel AND ask for free stuff," he 
says.
  No, it's not the noblest goal in the world.  It's no deeper than classic college 
stunts such as eating goldfish.  No deeper, but way more elaborate.
  Using a location brochure that lists more than 1,500 Denny's, Mr. Pfaff hits the 
road on weekends and during spring break.  Part of the project is his on-line 
diary.  After each road trip, he posts the details of each visit on his Internet 
Web page (http://entropy.muc.muohio.edu/~p7a77/rhpsfaq.html).
  Every time he visits a Denny's, he jots down the store number and the phone 
number, then looks for a signpost inspired by a quirky singer-songwriter from 
Michigan named Wally Pleasant and musical satirist Weird Al Yankovic.
  "There's this song by Wally Pleasant called 'Denny's at 4 a.m.' in which he says 
that every Denny's has a manager that looks like Weird Al Yankovic," says Mr. 
Pfaff.  "I love Weird Al.  So I look for the worker who looks like Weird Al. He 
doesn't have to have the bushy hair -- he could just have the glasses or be a 
nerd."
  On his excursions, he almost always orders coffee.  Occasionally he orders a 
basked of seasoned French fries with barbecue sauce.  Once in a while -- during 
the day, when the price is lower -- he orders a Grand Slam breakfast.
  "At $1.99, it's hard to resist," he says.
  Then he talks up the employees, in the hopes that they'll offer him a memento of 
his visit.
  The search for minor eccentricities at a national chain that's best known for 
vanilla-flavored consistency and the $1.99 Grand Slam could certainly strike 
chords in a city such as Dallas, where chain restaurants are often created.
  But Mr. Pfaff isn't the conteplative type, says Loree Parker, the 20-year-old 
Arlington resident with whom Mr. Pfaff stayed while he was in town.
  "I think he did this out of boredom," she says.
  The two met through their interaction on the Internet, where they've been 
corresponding for more than two years.  They're part of an international Internet 
club, some of whose members get together as often as once a month.  The stakes for 
achievement are high in this group, whose most notorious member, Dan Burford, 
schieved national attention when CNN reported on his "Exploding Head Page."
  Mr. Pfaff, in fact, was on the fence about coming to Dallas until he learned an 
article may be written about him.  He proudly cites the 1,500 people who have 
visited his Denny's Web site.
  But he also has a history of initiating weird projects.  His most recent 
"achievement" was getting campus approval of a student organization whose title is 
too deliberately risque to be printed.  He also organizes cast parties for local 
screenings of the midnight cult film "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" and holds 
down a job as a resident assistant at his dormitory.
  He loves to travel, he says, but the project also forces him to interact with 
people.  As he runs down the list of Denny's he's visited, he recalls the waitress 
who gave him a vomit cleanup kit; the Missouri store whose entire staff posed for 
a picture; and the Gainesville, Texas, store where he "hit gold" with a 3-by-4-
foot "lunch basket" poster.
  Scamming free stuff adds an element of intrigue.  In his five-store sweep 
through Arlington, accompanied by Ms. Parker and Amie Vanderford, another Internet 
acquaintance, his experience runs the gamut from scoring a tie clip at one Denny's 
to nearly getting thrown out of another.
  "At the store at Cooper, I got a Minute Maid pin -- that'd make my fifth," he 
says.  "On Pioneer Parkway, we got a free chef's hat.  Then we went up to the one 
on North Watson, where the manager gave us an [employee] pin that says 'Pedro.' 
Apparently, they fired someone named Pedro."
  Mr. Pfaff "sounds like one of our better customers," says Karen Randall, 
spokeswoman for Denny's in Spartanburg, S.C.
  "We don't have a program to be giving away things," she says. "But people should 
expect a good, friendly atmosphere at Denny's, and it sounds like he's getting it.
  "I personally would like to get to know him better."
  Mr. Pfaff would love to meet Ms. Randall, as well.  Corporate sponsorship from 
Denny's is one of his many goals.  He finances these safaris himself; on this 
trip, he's spent $60 on gas and $40 on food.
"These meals aren't the cheapest," he says. "Five dollars a meal can add up."
  At the final Denny's in Arlington, Mr. Pfaff persuaded an employee to part with 
an ultimate prize: one of the orange juice carafes that sits on every table at 
Denny's.
  "It's useless stuff -- but it's still really cool stuff," he says.

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