Reporting by Brian Blueskye, Palm Springs Desert Sun
To most, the chain restaurant Denny’s is famous for its Grand Slam breakfasts and other comfort food items. It’s not a place you’d expect to see a mosh pit.
However, on Monday, Oct. 26, about 200 people packed into Denny’s in Thousand Palms to see the bands Mella, Lost Not Found, Just Let Me Go, and Materia perform in a special pop-up show. Clips of the concert on Instagram showed the bands performing without a stage, surrounded by the audience as they moshed and crowd-surfed.
The promoter, Xavier Dougherty, said on Wednesday, Oct. 28, that the concert was less about the novelty of throwing a show at a Denny’s and more about creating more community spaces in the Coachella Valley.
“Our scene is very underground. I walked into the coffee shop I go to every morning yesterday, and I had a few people come up to me and be like, ‘Hey, I saw you on the news. I didn’t even know we had a scene out here.’ If you do something unconventional, people find out about it, and it creates more venues and spaces,” Dougherty said.
Denny’s locations have been used for concerts before
This was not the first time a concert happened at a Denny’s. In 2013, a Houston, Texas location that was going out of business hosted a show by the band Live Without. A video of the band’s frontman screaming “What the f–k is up, Denny’s?” went viral, and the show became known as “The Denny’s Grand Slam.” In May, Denny’s celebrated the 13th anniversary of the show and partnered with Live Without on the “Mozz Pit Burger.” The band also filmed a promotional video for Denny’s inside a restaurant location.
In 2019, a Denny’s in Santa Ana hosted a show by the band Wacko, and another location in Glen Carbon, Illinois, hosted an outdoor concert series in 2023. Blink-182 also played a Denny’s in Long Beach in 2023, performing only one song as part of a celebration of guitarist and vocalist Tom DeLonge rejoining the band and an upcoming tour at the time.
When Dougherty approached local Denny’s franchisees Gary and Violet Woodford about throwing a concert in one of their local restaurants, the owners agreed because they wanted to support the local music scene.
“We’re in the Coachella Valley. We have festivals all the time, but you don’t see it represented outside of that,” Violet said. “We saw other Denny’s were doing it and were like, ‘We need to bring that to our Denny’s.’ Our plan was to keep it local because we support anything and everything local.”
“It was awesome,” Gary said. “I grew up in the ’90s, so I’m familiar with the punk rock scene, and it’s the kind of music I used to listen to. The bands were super respectful.”
The cost to put on the free show, such as paying for the headlining band Mella and security, came out of her own pocket, but she also had backing from the Woodfords.
“They’re very generous people and helped me with some of the band guarantee, but ultimately for them, they care a lot about the community, which is why I was willing to work with them,” Dougherty said.
The Woodfords credited Brianna Puente of Puente Marketing LLC of Cathedral City for the massive response the concert received on the restaurant’s Instagram page.
“If you look at it from a marketing perspective, to get that much engagement, that would have cost me a fortune, so to get that type of engagement for a very low investment was almost a no-brainer, I think,” Gary said.
According to Dougherty, the show attracted attendees throughout Southern California and as far as Arizona, including different music scenes. Some who didn’t get into the show commented on Instagram that lines had wrapped around the building long before the show had started.
The owners went into the show ‘with eyes wide open’
The Woodfords knew their restaurant wasn’t designed to host a hardcore concert with 200 attendees moshing and crowd surfing. Gary said they went into it “with eyes wide open,” understanding there could be some damage to the furniture or interior. Dougherty said one attendee hung from a ceiling fixture, causing it to come down.
“At the end of the day, something is going to get damaged no matter what precautions you take, especially with the genre that I personally book. I did make it very clear that there were risks involved, but they were generally on board with it, especially after the flyer dropped and kind of took off,” Dougherty said.
“We had asked the promoter and the bands to make an announcement where they said, ‘Hey, we can do this more often if people are respectful of the building.’ I’m happy to report there’s essentially zero damage, and some of the kids even stayed to help us clean up. It was a pretty special event,” Gary said.
When asked if they would host another concert, Gary said, “Oh, heck yeah!” They would also like to include more genres of the local music scene, including DJ sets. He said this is not only about connecting with the community, but also with the next generation of Denny’s customers and remaining relevant during a difficult time for restaurants.
“Denny’s is a legacy diner, we weren’t very active on social media for a very long time, and we’re actually playing catch-up from a national marketing company,” Gary said.
The Woodfords have also begun hosting events such as movie nights, craft nights, pet supply drives, and other community events at their restaurants.
“Denny’s can kind of get lost in that national big corporate chain, but I want people to know that it’s local, family-owned and operated, and a lot of the time we don’t necessarily have the backing of a big national company,” Gary said.
Dougherty also hopes to do more concerts at Denny’s in the future.
“I’m definitely looking to continue working with (the Woodfords), not only because they’re the best venue owners I have ever worked with, but also because we only have two places to play out here. One of them is a little expensive, and the other one is not a legitimate venue and gets shut down often. So with something like this on the table, and with them owning so many of the (Denny’s) locations out here, it really creates so many more places for our scene to thrive,” said Dougherty.
The Denny’s location at 67-950 Vista Chino, Cathedral City, is hosting its 2nd Annual Trunk or Treat from 7 to 10 p.m. Friday, Oct. 30, featuring decorated cars, costumes, vendors, music, candy, raffles, giveaways and more.
Brian Blueskye covers arts and entertainment for the Desert Sun. He can be reached at brian.blueskye@desertsun.com
This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun.
