I Am Eating Everything On Denny’s ‘Beetlejuice’ Menu

Beetlejuice is a heck of a salesman. In his first movie, he made his own TV commercial, and convinced the ghostly Maitlands to hire him to purge their house of its new corporeal owners. Mr. Juice’s pitch concluded with him dancing about his model graveyard home as he bellowed “I’ll eat anything you want me to eat! I’ll swallow anything you want me to swallow! But come on down, and I’ll chew on a dog!”

For the last 10 years, I have used Beetlejuice’s words as my own personal journalistic credo. When it comes to foods inspired by the world of movies, I’ll eat anything you want me to eat. I’ll swallow anything you want me to swallow. I haven’t chewed on a dog yet — but if, say, Hot Dog On a Stick wants to partner with Kraven the Hunter for a special Big Game Meats Menu, I’ll be there.

Every time a restaurant introduces a menu full of outlandish food based on a blockbuster motion picture, I do my best Beetlejuice impression and eat any and all of it and document the entire experience. In my culinary travels, I’ve eaten a “calzony” shaped like the Batman logo, dined on Han Solo pancakes topped with Pop Rocks, and housed a Crave Case filled with ghost pepper sliders that recreated the agony of watching X-Men: Apocalypse with uncanny accuracy. In recent years, my skin has also turned pasty white, and I’ve developed dark circles around my eyes and green rashes all over my face. That’s just a coincidence, right?

As for qualifications for judging the relative merits of a tie-in menu, well, I attended Juilliard, I’m a graduate of the Harvard Business School. I travel quite extensively. I lived through the Black Plague and had a pretty good time during that. I’ve seen The Exorcist about a 167 times and it keeps getting funnier every single time I see it! Not to mention the fact that you’re talking to a guy who ate purple Wonka pancakes, blue IF pancakes, King Kong street tots, and something called “Thing Sauce.” Now, what do you think? You think I’m qualified?

READ MORE: I Also Ate Four Deadpool & Wolverine Pizzas (I Live Quite a Life)

Today, it’s Beetlejuice’s turn, thanks to the folks over at Denny’s. When I first got into the movie food game, Denny’s was the biggest name in the business. They obliterated colons with an entire menu filled with bacon in honor of Independence Day: Resurgence and sent the internet into hysterics with their menu inspired by Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit. (Brave adventurers still tell tales of their legendary Hobbit Hole breakfast.)

In recent years, Denny’s competitors at IHOP have replaced them as the dominant champions of bizarre movie foods. But now Denny’s is back, and clearly they are making up for lost time with their Beetlejuice Beetlejuice menu. It contains one breakfast dish, a grilled cheese stuffed with mozzarella sticks, an enormous (and, oh god, “Beetlejuicy”) burger, plus a specially-themed sundae. And I am going to eat all of it.

As you are read these words, I’m settling into a lovely Denny’s in the New York Tri-State area, and ordering my meal. (As I understand it, I have to ask for it three times, or the waiter just brings you a regular Grand Slam.) I’ll be documenting my reactions course by course, along with photos to compare what Denny’s is advertising and what they actually serve me, so keep refreshing for further updates. Will I need a bio-exorcist for my colon when all is said and done? We’re about to find out.

And now, it’s showtime.

(For my diverticulitis.)

UPDATE #1:

While I do sometimes eat these movie meals alone — and let me tell you, if you’ve ever in your life wanted to a waiter to look at you strange, all you need to do is go to an IHOP by yourself and say “I’d like to order everything on your Addams Family menu please” — I am fortunate to be joined on this descent into the culinary afterlife by Griffin Newman, the co-host of the superb Blank Check podcast and a man who shares my fascination with movie-themed promotional items and foodstuffs.

Griffin previously sampled IHOP’s Wonka menu with me. I was a little concerned Griffin might never speak to me again after we drank from something that looked like a prop from There’s Something About Mary. Fortunately, he’s decided to return to see what the ghoulish chefs at Denny’s have cooked up for Tim Burton’s long-awaited legacyquel.

We decided to start with the Afterlife Melt because, frankly, we asked the waitress for the entire Beetlejuice Beetlejuice menu and after looking at us with grave alarm for a second, that’s what she brought out first. Here is how the menu describes it.

The eternal favorite is back! The Afterlife Melt triple cheese threat is made with fried mozzarella sticks, melted American and provolone cheeses grilled between two slices of artisan bread. Served with tomato sauce for dipping and wavy-cut fries.

Here is how the melt looks on the menu.

And here’s what we were served.

This item was not invented for this Beetlejuice Beetlejuice menu; it previously existed as a special at Denny’s called the “Fried Cheese Melt.” (Apparently, the item has something of a cult following, hence the menu describing it as an “eternal favorite.”) It’s the sort of idea for a dish that a small child or a stoned man might invent — and the execution of that idea is perfectly acceptable here. If you want a grilled cheese that’s all mozzed up in the middle, that’s what you get. The bread is buttery, and the exterior of the sticks in the middle had a surprising amount of crisp given that they were served in the middle of a gooey sandwich. (Also, the description was no lie: We got a cup of tomato sauce with this sucker.)

That said … what does this have to do with Beetlejuice Beeltejuice? I guess the tomato sauce might read as blood from a distance? If you squint, maybe you can convince yourself the mozzarella sticks look a little like bones? (Bones that have been breaded? Would Beetlejuice do something that twisted? Maybe he would.) There is absolutely zero theming to this whatsoever. You can — and Denny’s has! — serve this in a context that has nothing to do with Tim Burton movies, and no one would bat an eye (unless they were a nutritionist).

Let’s see if we can up the theming with the next item…

UPDATE #2

Next we’re trying the signature dish of this menu, the Say It Three Times Slam. If we’re going to get Beetlejuice’s essence in food form from Denny’s this might be our best shot.

The menu says…

Say It Three Times Slam is a breakfast dish so nice, you’ll say it thrice. Comes with three silver dollar chocolate chip pancakes topped with vanilla cream, chocolate sauce, chocolate chips and green sprinkles. Served with three eggs* cooked your way and three strips of crispy bacon.

The official picture of said Slam:

And here’s what we were served…

Well, visually we’re at least more in the Beetlejuice ballpark. The pancakes are covered with icing and then drizzled with chocolate sauce, giving you the signature black-and-white stripes of the title character’s favorite suit. Look! There’s Beetlejuice! Who wants to eat him?

Note, however, that the official photo’s sprinkles look like a dark forrest green. In person, they are more of a pale, almost boogery green. Not what was advertised, but all things, considered, perhaps more accurate to Beetlejuice’s unhealthy complexion. So we’ll call that a wash.

As for the flavor… these might have worked better on IHOP’s Wonka menu, where there was an inexplicable lack of chocolate in most of the items. Despite the generous portion of white goop atop the pancakes, all I can taste is chocolate. The “vanilla cream”’s role here is almost entirely decorative. (The bacon is crisp and the eggs are fine — but do you want to eat runny eggs with a big mound of chocolate? I’m not dying to — well, I am dying to now, but not by choice.)

At least those are my thoughts. I should tell you that Griffin was more of a fan of the pancakes than I was. So far, he thinks Denny’s is two for two in the flavor department, although we both concur the theming is a little low (“.5 for two,” per Griffin.)

Next: We answer the eternal question: What makes a burger taste “Beetlejuicy”?

(Sigh.)

UPDATE #3

Before we move on to the burger, Griffin just made an astute observation about the Slam. While the menu description says the Slam comes with “silver dollar pancakes” we got full-sized pancakes on ours. That might explain some of the flavor issues — the pancake-to-white-goop ratio was all thrown off.

Anyway, it’s time for the main event. The Beetlejuicy Burger.

Beetle. Juicy. Burger.

And what, pray tell, is in a “Beetlejuicy Burger”? Let’s find out together, shall we?

Invoke freakishly good flavor with the Beetlejuicy Burger. Three quarter pound patties, three strips of crispy bacon, three slices of provolone cheese, topped with signature Diner Q sauce, pickles, onions, tomatoes, and lettuce, all stacked high on a golden Brioche Bun. Served with wavy-cut fries.

Here is the image on the official Denny’s website:

And here is what we were served:

This burger is massive. Here’s a picture Griffin took of me trying to get my mouth around the entire thing:

The paper under the burger with Beetlejuice Beetlejuice branding is a nice touch, but otherwise this is another item that really has little to nothing to do with the movie we’re here to flog. Unless you want to say only a sicko like Tim Burton could imagine such a monstrous hunk of ground beef on a single golden brioche bun, I’m struggling to see the connection.

Denny’s wouldn’t have been in business for over 60 years if they couldn’t make a decent burger. Anyone of these three patties would have made for a totally satisfying meal. The three patties here made it a towering, unwieldy mess, and almost impossible to eat without it falling completely to pieces in your hands. (“I cannot remember the last time I felt this physically stressed by a food,” Griffin said as we both struggled to maintain our burgers’ structural integrity.)

I eventually gave up, and ate the rest of my mound of burger with a knife and fork. I guess you could say that was the corpse of my burger? Look, I’m trying here!

Let’s eat dessert before the 1400-1790 calories I just ingested hit my arteries.

FINAL UPDATE:

Before I become one of the Recently Deceased and wrap this up, I must pass along some information Griffin discovered while sitting here at this very nice Denny’s (with an excellent and attentive waitstaff): Unless I am hallucinating as a result of the approximately 600 grams of saturated fat currently coating my brain, Denny’s has a secondary website called Diner Drip, where they sell Denny’s themed apparel. The “Baconalia Bucket Hat” looks particularly delicious.

Back to the task at hand: The grand finale of the Beetlejuice Beetlejuice menu, the Cookies N’ Scream Shake. The menu describes this as…

Shake but not from fear with the Cookies N’ Scream Shake. Made with premium vanilla ice cream, OREO® cookie pieces, topped with whipped cream, more OREO® cookies pieces and green sprinkles. Green sprinkles may contain artificial food dye colors.

Here’s the picture on Denny’s website:

And here’s the shake we received:

Once again, the “green” sprinkles are more of a faded yellow; not what we were promised, but perhaps one of the few elements of the menu that actually evoke the Beetlejuice character. It’s served in one of those classic Coca-Cola glasses with a slight green tint, so the drink looks a bit more green as well.

As for the shake itself: This is a cookies and cream milkshake with very little besides the sprinkles to suggest anything unusual or novel about it. And that seems to be the recurring theme of this whole menu; the food all tastes fine, but the theming is so underwhelming, especially for a movie as big and over the top as Beetlejuice. 

Think of all the the weird menu items you could make around Beetlejuice. How about a dessert with chocolate “dirt” and gummy worms and bugs? How about pasta that looks like Michael Keaton’s wild Beetlejuice hair? A sandworm sandwich of some kind! A shrimp cocktail that looks like the demon hand that grabbed all the guests at the dinner party! A patty melt with the ghost pepper cheese left over from those X-Men: Apocalypse White Castle sliders! How about some actual freaking “beetle juice”?!? 

Those are just a few ideas we came up with off the top of our heads. I want to stand on the table and scream “WHERE IS THE BEETLEJUICE IN THIS BEETLEJUICE BEETLEJUICE THEME MENU?” but I promised my wife I wouldn’t get arrested in a Denny’s again.

It all feels a bit half-hearted. And this is Denny’s, who, again, used to be the veritable ghosts with the most of the weird movie food world. They created Seed Cake French Toast with Shire Sausage! They invented the Thing Burger (with Thing Sauce)! In a world where IHOP debuts a new color of pancake that has never existed before in nature every six months, I think the market demands a little bit more here.

Wait, hang on: Is the plot of Beetlejuice Beetlejuice that Lydia’s dad dies of overeating? If that’s the case, I take it all back. Denny’s, you hit the nail right on the head. Because I am stuffed. The only thing left to say is: Daylight come and I wanna go home.