Denny's will sell Toma Empanadas at more than 240 restaurants across California, Arizona, Texas and Florida starting Oct. 28. The partnership with the brand co-founded by Sofia Vergara and her son, Manolo Gonzalez Vergara, puts four varieties on the menu, two of them exclusive to the chain.

Pricing is straightforward. In-store guests can order any two empanadas with chips and salsa as an entrée for $13.99, or add a single empanada with dipping sauce for $5.99. The items also slot into a Triple Play Combo. Off-premises customers get two online-exclusive bundles: one empanada plus a beverage for $8.99, or any two empanadas plus a beverage for $14.99. That structure prices the digital order above the dine-in pair, a small incentive to walk in the door.

The lineup itself:

• Bacon, Egg, and Cheese Empanada (exclusive to Denny's): bacon, scrambled eggs, cheddar, peppers and onions, served with salsa.
• Guava and Cheese Empanada: sweet guava filling with white cheese, served with vanilla cream.
• Chicken in Salsa Verde Empanada: pulled chicken in salsa verde, served with red salsa.
• Beef Empanada: seasoned beef with tomatoes, onions and Kalamata olives, served with salsa.

Catering extends the program. On the catering menu — new to Denny's as of August 2026 — customers can order 10 empanadas in one flavor or 20 in up to two flavors. That gives the chain a catering-specific SKU bundle on day one rather than a retrofitted add-on.

What is Toma, and who makes it?

Toma Empanadas is a consumer packaged goods brand created and distributed by Nestle, already sold in the frozen aisle at national retailers including Walmart. Smaller foodservice operators, among them Bodega Taqueria, have carried the products. Denny's is the first national restaurant chain partnership Toma has announced. In practice, the deal gives Denny's a co-branded launch without building a from-scratch supply chain, and gives Nestle a foodservice channel at scale.

Why menu engineering drove this, not novelty

CEO Chris Bode framed the deal as demographic strategy rather than a limited-time stunt. Denny's customer base, he said, skews Hispanic, yet the core menu leans classic American breakfast with little Latin representation.

"We want to evolve our core menu into something a little bit more strategic in the markets that we compete in," Bode said. "Our consumer base is evolving, and we want to make sure that we cater to everyone. So, Toma Empanadas was a great vehicle for that. We'll introduce more Latino plates over time, but this is a great entry point."

That is a menu engineering statement, and it reads like one. The chain is testing a category entry through an exclusive flavor (bacon, egg and cheese) that maps directly onto its breakfast-heavy dayparts, at a $13.99 price point consistent with a family-dining entrée rather than an appetizer.

The product development ran through Toma's side. Gonzalez Vergara said the breakfast brief was welcomed: "We really love coming up with new flavors, so when Denny's told us they wanted a couple of breakfast empanadas, we said, 'no problem.' We worked through a few versions until we got it right." He added that the collaboration may extend further, mentioning possible pancakes in the future.

Where this fits in Project Grand Slam

The Toma deal is one of the first brand partnerships Denny's has announced under Project Grand Slam, the revitalization plan introduced earlier this year under Bode's leadership. The four-state footprint — California, Arizona, Texas and Florida — concentrates the launch in markets where the demographic case is strongest, which suggests the readout on this test will be regional sales data, not national sentiment.

If the empanadas move check averages in those 240 units, more Latino plates follow, per Bode's own wording. If they don't, the chain still holds a low-cost CPG partnership it can scale back quietly.