Posted on 08/15/2005 11:40:41 AM PDT by Rebelbase
The iconic black and yellow letters beckon from a sign near Interstate 40 and Randleman Road. Inside the low-slung restaurant that claims the sign, there's plenty of batter ready.
But it isn't destined for a fryer. This is Waffle House, and here, batter belongs on an iron -- a waffle iron.
Founded in 1955 in Avondale Estates, Ga., the restaurant chain has been serving "Good Food Fast" around-the-clock for five decades. It will celebrate its 50th anniversary Labor Day.
Freeway Foods of Greensboro opened the city's first Waffle House franchise in 1973 on Randleman Road.
The restaurant operated 24 hours a day, 365 days a year until it closed in fall 2004, Freeway Foods President Gary Fly said.
The old restaurant was torn down, and a new one opened on the same lot in March. A steady stream of customers filed into that location Sunday, filling booths as soon as servers wiped them clean.
"I come here every day," Sammy Davis Jeffers said from his seat at a yellow counter. "I came every day for 25 years, until they tore it down.
"And then I came to the parking lot," he said jokingly.
That sort of customer loyalty has made Waffle House what it is, said Betty Horne, a server who has worked with the chain on and off since 1990.
"Some, I know their names," she said. "Some, I just know their faces."
Since its founding, Waffle House has grown into an icon that sells 3.2 million pounds of grits annually and claims almost 1,500 stores in 25 states.
The chain now stretches as far west as Arizona and as far north as Illinois, but it remains rooted deeply in the South and retains a distinctively down-home, blue-collar aura.
"We come here every time we come to the South," said Jeanne Chester said, seated in a booth at the Randleman Road location.
The Philadelphia resident was eating with her friend Toya Murphy of Clinton, Md., and Murphy's sister, Patrice Murphy, a junior at N.C. A&T.
Maybe it's the simple menu anchored by eggs, grits and hash browns "smothered and covered" in cheese and onions. Perhaps it's the firm cash-only policy, or even the fact that the restaurant serves most meals for less than $5. Somehow the place feels like being at Grandma's house for breakfast -- before she started worrying about her cholesterol.
Nowhere is Waffle House's workingman vibe stronger than at its headquarters in Norcross, Ga., just outside Atlanta. A plaque in the lobby says the whole building is dedicated to the "Poor Old Cash Customer Who Made It All Possible."
The company is privately held and doesn't disclose sales figures. But for an idea how well the little diners are doing, consider this: Two percent of all eggs produced in the United States for food service end up on Waffle House plates.
. As for the future, co-founders Joe Rogers Sr. and Tom Forkner envision a lot more Waffle Houses where everything stays the same.
No plans exist to end the cash-only policy -- credit cards would be too slow, Rogers said -- or to change the menu. Except for salads and sandwich wraps, and more pictures for customers who don't speak English, the restaurants look about as they did in 1955.
"We serve the basic foods, and the basic foods never change," Rogers said.
Good grits.
Love Waffle House. I have not been in a Waffle House before 12 in the morning. LOL.
I love Waffle House!!!! I was at one in Augusta Ga a few years ago wearing a James Brown hat. The nice waitress told me about how JB came into the store just a couple of days before with some people and wasn't terribly nice.
smothered, scattered, and fried.
Thank God for the Waffle House!
Having gotten food poisoning at one of them, I call them the Awful House
I love their jukeboxes with the Waffle House songs.
Whassa grit?
You poor southrons have never had the pleasurable experience of an independant Greek-run diner like those of us from the northeast. Puts the "Awful House" and Cracker Barrel to shame.
Good waffles. Good pancakes. Good eggs. Good bacon. Good grits. Good coffee. Good service. Good price.
Waffle House has made it North to Medina Ohio and I can't wait to get to it. One of my favorite things about the South!
We LOVE to get a Waffle House breakfast...anytime of the day or night. Smothered, covered, hashbrowns...YUM YUM!!
http://pages.prodigy.net/bote/waffle/whmenu.html
But sometimes you just gotta have biscuits and gravy. For that you have to hit The Huddle House.
Yes, or Cracker Barrel.
Ninteen years ago, fresh out of high school, I worked at the Waffle House on Frankin Road in Roanoke, Virginia for a few months.
I've long since moved up and far away, but last spring I was in town briefly and decided to stop in for a cup of coffee. I SWEAR, every single thing was the same. It was pretty crusty and grimey-looking. Even the orange plastic booths looked like they were the same ones since I was there, but that couldn't be possible.
I chatted with the waitresses and told them my story, and the older one said she had been working there for 17 years. I couldn't remember the names of the other waitresses from when I was there (Betty? Rose? There was always a Rose), but it would have been too weird if she had known them. It all seems like a million years ago to me.
Left a $5 tip for the coffee and left with weird, nostalgic and strangly sad feelings.
In fact, the cutoff is so close to the Mason/Dixon line that we should rename it the Waffle House/IHOP line!
I really hope this chain expands north however because it is hands down the best breakfast chain in the world. Friendly and quick service, excellent food and the prices are so low that they don't even take credit cards!
My favorite Waffle Houses are in the Guntersville/Albertville/Boaz area of Alabama along Highway 431. There is one up by Winchester, VA (near the WVA border just off I-81) that is a favorite spot of mine also.
My usual breakfast there is a ham and cheese omelet with wheat toast, buttered grits and a side of bacon and sausage. I then take the bacon and sausage and make sandwiches out of it with the wheat toast. The coffee is pretty decent there but I have to bring my own Splenda on account of the fact that they don't carry Splenda in their restaurants. Aside from that little inconvenience, it is quite possibly the PERFECT place to have breakfast.
What kind of grandmother did the author have? Mine never demanded cash payment for breakfast!
Thought you'd want to see something "scattered, smothered, and covered" that wasn't Rachel Corrie.
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