For Denny’s, Driving Around America to Feed Veterans Is a Trip Back to Its Founding Purpose
The Heroes Tour is a pandemic-era initiative inspired by an Eisenhower-era restaurateur
If you open the menu at any Denny’s and flip to the sandwich section, you’ll see an item called The Super Bird. It’s a hefty Dagwood made with turkey, Swiss cheese, tomato and bacon wedged into grilled sourdough. It comes with fries and, for $10, it’s a perennial crowd-pleaser. In fact, for the past week or so, thousands of Americans have been ordering them. So, what’s the news? Well, many of these customers are nowhere near an actual Denny’s, and the chain picked up the tab.
Last week, the diner chain pulled its Mobile Relief Diner out of its garage in Spartanburg, S.C., and put it on the road for what it calls its “Heroes Tour.” Between Nov. 13 and 22, homeless vets who can show their military ID will get a hot meal, gratis, from Denny’s 53-foot-long red semi, fitted out in 2018 as a colossal rolling kitchen.
Brands putting their charitable efforts on wheels is not a new idea. Tyson Foods owns a refrigerated Meals that Matter truck that can give away 100,000 meals a day in communities affected by natural disasters. Since 2011, Duracell has dispatched its PowerForward trucks to those same communities and given away free batteries. After a natural disaster, Tide’s Loads of Hope truck is another common sight, a mobile laundromat that will do the washing, drying and folding free of charge.
Two years ago, Denny’s put its Mobile Relief Diner on the road for much the same purpose, dispatching it to California after the wildfires and to the Carolinas after Hurricane Florence. As recently as September, the truck fed communities struck by Hurricane Laura.
But the 10-day, 800-mile tour now in progress around Arizona, Nevada and California is a departure from the norm. It’s the first time the rolling restaurant has gone on the road to support a cause that isn’t a natural disaster. And while feeding veterans who are down on their luck might seem like a no-brainer from the cause-marketing department, for Denny’s it’s actually a homecoming of sorts.
“Our brand purpose, which we uncovered several years ago now, is all about loving to feed people—bodies, minds and souls,” Denny’s chief brand officer John Dillon told Adweek. “That purpose, by the way, was direct from our founder, back in 1953.”
Dillon is talking about a man named Harold Butler, who 67 years ago started a coffee shop named Danny’s, which would go on to be named Denny’s. Butler is remembered most for a simple quote. When a reporter asked him how he built a chain with hundreds of locations, he said: “I love to feed people.”
During the company’s 2011 rebranding, when Denny’s shed its family-restaurant image for a return to its original diner positioning, Dillon took that quote to heart. And when it comes to the truck, he speaks of “the emotional space of that purpose. It’s about feeding stomachs and bodies, but it’s also about feeding souls when they need it the most.”
As for veterans, Denny’s has been feeding them for quite a while now, too. Eight years ago, the chain began serving free pancakes to military men and women on Veterans Day. In 2014, it expanded the offer into the Build Your Own Grand Slam breakfast offering. “We’ve given away millions of free Grand Slams over the years,” Dillon said. And while the current Heroes Tour (organized with U.S. Vets and Veterans Village of San Diego, on whose campuses the truck is stopping) was softly timed to Veterans Day, Dillon said that it’s really more about a national crisis than a national holiday.
According to the National Coalition for Homeless Veterans, 11% of the adult homeless population in the United States has a past that includes military service. The coronavirus pandemic—which has cost jobs and inflamed psychological problems including depression and substance abuse—has only deepened the crisis.
That’s also why Dillon’s team added the Super Bird to the truck’s menu, which usually leans heavily toward the pancakes, bacon and coffee end of things. A sandwich is a hearty meal that’s also conveniently portable. It’s proven so popular with vets, in fact, that Denny’s is thinking of making it a permanent menu offering for the truck when it returns to its disaster-relief duties.
Brand guru Deb Gabor, author of the book Irrational Loyalty, said that helping homeless veterans—especially at a time when the restaurant industry is down on its own luck—is a sensible and sympathetic fit for Denny’s, especially since Dillon found his motivation in the company’s history and its founder’s ethos. “They dug into what the original brand [stood for], the original story behind Denny’s, and it helped them renew their brand,” she said. “It’s a good brand fit from my perspective.”
“You can always tell when a brand is engaging in some kind of cause marketing for only the reasons of highlighting the brand—they’re co-opting a moment versus genuinely using their brand to make people’s lives better. This feels very authentic and on-brand. It’s meaningful.”