OK, to start with, I've got an idea, but no pictures. I'm going to build a Denny's restaurant. Yep, we all need a place to go to get those free grand slam breakfasts, and my layout is no different. I've search in Net and looked around town at different style Denny's and found there are several reoccurring building types which can be dated to a particular decade, and several others that come from refurbishing an existing building or one of a more recent era. In other words, there is no longer a specific look to a Denny's, just like there is no longer one for McDonald's, Taco Bell or Burger King. With that in mind, I'm going to create my version of a Denny's restaurant. My layout era is "today", so whatever I design and build will work, but there are some similarities that I will want to keep so it is recognizable as a Denny's. I will post some sketches as soon as I come up with some. Just don't hold your breath, it might take a while.

You're making me hungry Don.....
For a Grand Slam...And to see what you come up with.

Thats a neat idea Don, cant wait to see this Denny's taking shape

OK, it's time for a "Grand Slam" breakfast at Denny's... Research shows me that there are several styles of a Denny's restaurant. There is an older style with a sloping front and a newer style with a modified Mansard roof. There are also many other styles, but most of them are converts from other restaurants. Here are shots of two Denny's with the mansard roof that I'm going to use as my inspiration. The second one is about seven miles from my house so I was able to get pictures of the sides and back as well. My Denny's will be unique, but will follow much of the architectural aspects of a more modern Denny's. There's a brand new Denny's just about three miles from us, but it really doesn't have the characteristics of some of the others I've seen, so I'm going with this style.
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Denny's in Glendale, AZ

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Must depend on what the town wants, you know astetics, historical content...stuff like that.

There is a town not to far from me. They wanted to put up a McD's. The town said it had to be Railroad related.(Every year they have "Railroad Days") So, the outside was designed to look like a train station, and the interior is adorned with railroad pictures.
It is a cool place to eat a Big Mac. And if your lucky, you might catch the Housatonic RR on its way to switch the Phizer plant, as the lead passes right by the parking lot.

Your right. That second photo looks very generic. More like a burger joint.
We have one like the first photo about a mile from us.

Loren

Talking about requiring McD's to do it their way, a goodly number of years ago, they wanted to build one in Sedona, Arizona. Well, Sedona has a rather strict building code, just about all commercial buildings are designed to blend in with the surrounding scenery. McD's agreeded, but balked when they were told they couldn't have golden arches. "Teal, or turquoise" was the edict. At first they balked, but soon decided that if they were going to have a McD's in Sedona, it would have teal arches. So here's a picture we took about four years ago:

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Oh, note the license plate on the vehicle in the picture. We have since changed cars, but the plates stay with us.

I've eaten there Don.
Back when I was out there for my mother's funeral.

Quite a thing, they turned what they thought was a baddie into a marketing bonanza. There are signs as you come into town, "Home of the teal arches".

I haven't forgotten about this challenge. Now that I'm feeling better I'll update you all. I've been pecking away at my Denny's restaurant when I was able, but the going was slow for sure. Yesterday I looked at what I had completed and it looked like something I did when I was in kindergarten. It would have been embarrassing to continue that way, :oops: so I scrapped everything and started over today. Since I feel like I can to do more work now, I'll start posting progress pics shortly and hope my project is worthy of competing with what I see others doing in this challenge.

Well I think you had better get on the ball. My guys are working up a big appetite. and they are talking about going to a new Denny's for dinner. I told them I would treat if they got my project finished on time. So get with the program man. Some of these guys claim to know the famous Mr Jones. You remember, the Mr Jones who's wife was killed when she failed to stop for an oncoming train in the small town of Big Ugly back in April of 49. The upper berth May 20th

You are so correct my friend. I have progress to report, but I'm having problems with the pics I took of that progress. I might just have to jump ahead and show at least where I am right now. I'll try to do that later today, in the meantime, here's a link to a way that you can get 20% off your next visit to Denny's.

http://dennys.fbmta.com/a/0/27917706042/...fault.aspx

This just might take the edge off of waiting for the grand opening of my new Denny's for which I might just be offering better deals than this.

Well, I've been pecking a way at this for some time now, making a bit of progress, throwing away and redoing just about everything several times. I did take some progress pictures, but some of them are meaningless now, and a few others didn't turn out too good, a testimony to my picture-taking skills. So, just to bring things up to date, I took these pictures the past few days and kind of laid out the components that I used.

About five or six years ago when Model-Expo was going out of the train business, I bought up several Bachmann Car Repair Shop and Locomotive Repair Shop kits just for the parts. I know they were under $1.50 each and knew I could use the material someday. This is where I got the material for the roof facade, glass doors and windows. I also used the brick from the loco shop for the bottom of the walls. The top cement blocks are from a sheet of Evergreen styrene with 1/8" squares. The roof is a piece of .062 ABS and I used balsa wood to trim it and give it thickness.

This is where I am right now with the walls and roof:
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Now this is how I got to the roof. Installing the upper roof trim will be my next step:
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The walls and windows are all cut down from the Bachmann kits while th rock trim has been cut from a Pola loco service shop. I've got some corner blocks glued in place right now to keep the walls square and to give me something to glue the roof to when the time comes.
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Neat!! Looking good so far

Well I showed the pics to my guys. they got excited left the job site and were last seen going towards the Jones family stil>>> oops<<< buiseness :oops: to celebrate. Now I have to get them back to work safely some how.