It's one of the basic food groups after all;-)
Posted on 09/12/2015 7:55:48 AM PDT by don-o
Often on my day off, before a morning motorcycle ride in the mountains, I treat myself to breakfast at a Southern American institution: Waffle House.
Waffle Houses are not luxurious. The box-like buildings are designed for cheerful efficiency, and cheerfully efficient they are. As soon as you walk through the door the staff call out a cheerful, “Good morning!” The pleasantries continue as you are seated and a drink is immediately placed before you. A moment later the waitress is ready to advise you or take your order. She’s well groomed, clean and friendly. She’s talkative without being a bore and easy-going without being slack.
The menu is also cheerful and efficient. The All Star Special is the best value. You get two eggs as you like them, grits (this is South Carolina) or hash browns (if you’re a Yankee), bacon or sausage, toast, coffee and a waffle, and the mug of coffee has no bottom.
I like to sit at the counter and watch the team at work. They are men and women, young, middle-aged and almost retired. They are African American, Hispanic, and white, and they are all working together as a team, joking and chatting. The waitresses shout out the orders in diner lingo, while the chefs are busy slapping bacon on the griddle, scrambling eggs, watching the hash browns, and flipping the sausages. One team member preps and finishes the plates, another is busy bussing tables, sweeping the floor and loading the dishwasher. Three girls are waiting tables. A manager circulates to talk to customers and keep an eye on the whole operation… cheerfully, efficiently and 24/7.
Unit_1_SepiaWaffle House is sixty years old this month. The first restaurant opened on Labor Day weekend in 1955 in Avondale Estates, Georgia. That restaurant was conceived and founded by Joe Rogers Sr. and Tom Forkner, who both continue to own a majority of the company. Rogers’s concept was to combine the speed of fast food with table service with around-the-clock availability. He told Forkner, “You build a restaurant, and I’ll show you how to run it.”
After opening a fourth restaurant in 1960, the company began franchising its restaurants and slowly grew to twenty-seven stores by the late 1960s. There are now over 2,000 Waffle Houses in twenty-five states, and as my local manager told me, “They keep building a new one every day!”
Writing about Southern culture Jim Ridley observes:
The Waffle House is everywhere in the South. It has inspired country songs, comedy routines, loving editorials, a scene in the movie Tin Cup, and even web sites and Internet newsgroups that breathlessly post late-breaking developments. With more than 1700 locations in 25 states, as far north as Ohio and as far west as Arizona, Waffle House is cherished by thousands of diners. Regular customers speak of its employees, its customs, and its food with near reverence. Touring musicians have been known to eat five meals a week there. Yet the Waffle House is so pervasive, it is invisible. It does not advertise; it hides in plain sight.
What’s the real secret of Waffle House success? No doubt the usual American mix of customer service, good value, military precision, and entrepreneurial genius, but behind it all some truly American values are being lived out. Despite being a national chain, Waffle House manages to create a local feel. One morning over breakfast I found myself seated next to a local African-American pastor and we started swapping ministry stories about our flocks. Another morning I found my bill had been covered by a local Catholic businessman who gave me a cheerful (and efficient) wave as he downed his bacon, eggs, and coffee.
The local feel is created by loyal and local staff. Not only does the mix of sex, ages, and races reflect the best of America working together, but every time I’ve visited Waffle House I get the impression that the team really enjoys working at Waffle House. Employees report good benefits with health care and paid vacations, but there’s more to Waffle House success.
I’ve quizzed managers and discovered that many of them have worked at Waffle House for twenty years or more. Then I discovered one of the reasons for the cheerfulness of their hard work: employees are given the opportunity to purchase stock in Waffle House. While Forkner and Rogers continue to own majority, they’ve encouraged employees to share ownership through purchasing stocks.
slideshow_1503757_wafflehouse.0321_cAt Waffle House you don’t only get a slice of pie, you get a slice of American pie. A good company not only looks after ts customers, but it also invests in their workers. In this way, Waffle House is not only an American success story, it is also a great example Catholic social teaching in action. Catholic social teaching swings on the two hinges of subsidiarity and solidarity. Subsidiarity is the principle that initiatives are taken and solutions are found at the most local level possible. Solidarity is the principle that we are not islands. We are “a continent, a part of the main.” We are family. We care for one another.
If these two principles were applied within families, within parishes, within dioceses, communities, corporations, and governments many of our social problems would resolve themselves. Put simply we should care for one another at the local level—the level of reality. We should, if you like, serve one another breakfast more often…
…and we should do so cheerfully and efficiently.
Chicken Fried Steak is a Texas cuisine.
Unlike Tex-Mex food, it’s not been successfully exported outside the state.
It’s descended from Wienerschnitzel prepared by German immigrants who settled around the Texas Hill Country.
Do a Google search for restaurants that prepare it, basically you find the best within about 150 miles of Austin.
The trick is finding a restaurant that makes it from scratch, most just have premade garbage made by food service companies.
Never get it at a chain like Waffle House, it’s like getting Pizza Hut pasta when you’re in Philadelphia.
Stopped eating at WH when they didn’t have real butter. Don’t know if it’s still that way. Dead to me.
We’ve only been to a few of their stores, but we noticed about the time we got to Destin, Florida that the further south you get, the more tattoos the Waffle House waitresses are sporting....
That sounds yummy!
Traveling home to Florida from Long island I stopped at a few Waffle House’s Most were pleasant but a few were dirty one being so dirty I walked out of the place.
The only chain or franchise where I’ve yet to experience a poorly-run location is Chik-fil-A. With the rest I’ve had occasional bad experiences. Waffle House might be a little more prone but you can generally tell from the minute you walk in the door. Clean with nice people working there? They care, the rest of your experience will likely be good.
Yes. I love chicken fried steak. Texas is the Motherland for it.
I only learned that It derived from wiener schnitzel not that long ago. I didn’t know what wiener schnitzel was.
I also didn’t learn about the huge German influx and influence in Texas until not that long ago. New Braunfels had a German language paper until not all that long ago.
I wouldn’t, and didn’t, go to Waffle House for that. I just wanted to go because I’d never been there.
My roots are Texan. My grandma was born in Hill Country over a hundred years ago now. They all moved to Southern California, with a first stop in Phoenix.
But from my grandma and great Aunts, I know real Texas homemade food, country gravy and pies and German chocolate cake etc...
And, when I was in the area I went to Blue Bonnet Cafe for chicken fried steak.
I’ve heard Indiana referred to as the northern most southern state. It’s as if there was a good stiff societal breeze that came up from Tennessee and Kentucky through southern Indiana. Plenty of good, rock-solid folk (speaking as a native Hoosier).
Love Waffle House. Any time, any where.
It's one of the basic food groups after all;-)
Beautiful food pyramid.
“Every wide spot in the road in Texas has at least one place serving chicken fried steak.”
Except, I found out, Waffle House.
I still don’t get why there aren’t any in the Dc area, that and Sonic
Since we don’t have any Waffle House in our area,I thought Waffle House was a nickname for our Congress.
and the mug of coffee has no bottom.
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Recently my brother was in the hospital. He was not supposed to get out of bed, so they gave him a pee bottle to use while lying down.
Unable to urinate in a prone position, in the middle of the night he stood beside the bed and held the bottle to pee in. He told me that his feet were getting wet and he knew he wasn’t missing the bottle because his penis was right at the opening.
He managed to turn on his bed side light and saw that the bottle had no bottom (factory defect) he called for assistance and he and the clean up crew had a good laugh. I told him that it would have been even worse, had he been able to pee while lying down.
I wouldn’t want a “bottomless coffee mug” either.
There is one in Dumfries.
Wow. Your words just gave a tiny chest pain.
Mmmm, gravy.
I hava an old neighbor who is Czech-Texan.
He has a Czech accent even though he was born here!
Lots of German and Czech influence in TX.
They have great cuisine.
They are Caucasian, but diverse!
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