Breakfast Fail: Intrepid Reporter Attempts To Eat Five Denny's Grand Slams

Remember the Denny's Super Bowl ad that promised free breakfast to everyone in America? Two million were served on Tuesday between 6 a.m. and 2 p.m., including five to one Chicago Tribune reporter alone.

Kevin Pang of the Chicago Tribune, whose previous claim to fame is that he once ate penis with Bill Plascke, hit five area Denny's over the eight-hour span on Tuesday, consuming five Grand Slams.

Grand Slam No. 4 Melrose Park, 7:41 a.m. I fight with a fat woman over a parking space, who glares icy daggers and eventually wins. Inside the restaurant, there is a 14-minute wait (an outrage, considering my need for instant gratification).

I am running out of creative egg preparations, so I go with no-cholesterol, substitute Egg Beaters. I will not make that mistake the next time. It is the Alpo of eggs. It is flavorless and evil. Worse yet, my sausage links have shriveled into dried lumps of brown matter.

Why Kevin's report failed: He apparently did not clean his plate with all of the meals. What kind of investigative journalism is that? Takeru Kobayashi hangs his head in shame.

In all, Denny's handed out $12 million worth of free meals.

They came by car, bus, light rail and on foot and cheerfully waited in line, sometimes for more than an hour, for the chain's signature breakfast of two eggs, two strips of bacon, two sausage links and two pancakes.

Word spread like wildfire Tuesday to people who missed the 30-second spot during the third quarter of Sunday's Super Bowl. Denny's and Grand Slam were the most-used words Feb. 3 on the Twitter social-networking site. The dennys.com Web site got so many hits in the morning that it was down sporadically in Dallas, Seattle and Los Angeles.

The top Super Bowl ad, however, according to Nielsen IAG, was the Budweiser fetching Clydesdale.

Getting Slammed [Chicago Tribune] Denny's Free-Meal Offer Draws Crowd [Arizona Republic]