April 4, 2018 • 30 mins
There's a reason the chain doesn't have any ovens and won't serve you pancakes. Will and Mango explore the brilliant business of Waffle House. Learn why high end chefs love to hire Waffle House grill operators, how the restaurants keep open when their water lines break, and why on earth Waffle House got into the music video business. Plus, why you'll want to make a reservation at Waffle House this Valentine's Day.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Guess what Mango? What's that will? So I know, we
were looking at the list of all the celebrities and
musicians especially that love going to waffle House, and the
list just cracks me up. Like Kim and Kanye supposedly
double date there. Donnie Wahlberg, who yes, I consider a musician.
He also gives these insane tips there. Apparently Kid Rock
chooses to get in brawls there, which is really not
(00:21):
that surprising. But for all the musicians who eat there,
did you realize that waffle House actually has its own
music label. You can play the songs on their juke
boxes right there. You know. As much as I've been
in waffle House, like, I can't say I've ever actually
paid attention to the music really, and I probably hadn't
either until I was there with my son and he
started singing a Garth Brooks song along with the jukebox.
(00:43):
I was like, how did you know this song? Anyway? So, actually,
some of the great ones that are on the list
of songs that are part of their label. There's uh,
there are Raisins in My Toast by Danny Jones. You
really want to check this one out, or they're cooking
up My Order Boy by ALFREDA. Gerald. I guess well,
apparently that's by design, and according to waffle House, they
(01:03):
want the music to set the mood, like, not be
an advertisement that just droned waffle House, waffle House, waffle House.
You know, they actually set this high standard and if
it sounds too much like a jingle, they refused to
put it on waffle House records. I just love saying
waffle House records. But that's just the first of a
heaping pile of waffle House facts we're about to dive into.
So let's dig in y day their podcast listeners, Welcome
(01:46):
to Part Time Genius. I'm Will Pearson and as always
I'm joined by my good friend Man Guesh Ticketer and
sitting behind that soundproof glass wearing a shirt that says
Toast of the town. It's just got a big old
piece of French toast at the top of it. That's
our pal and produce, Sir Tristan McNeil. You know, he
is the toast of the toast of the town. But
I'm kind of surprised he didn't pick like a more
(02:07):
waffle House centric shirt, like one that said, uh, I
don't know, like scattered, smothered or covered or our house
is a very very fine waffle house. And I mean
waffle house doesn't even serve French toast. It's true, And
that's maybe the most critical I've ever heard of you
being one of Tristan's shirts or props. But anyway, that
they mostly don't serve French toast, and they also don't
(02:28):
serve pancakes. So that's actually something I've always wondered about,
Like waffle seems so much harder to make than pancakes,
at least for me. You know, I've read that the
thing with pancakes is that, unlike waffles, they're really hard
to standardize on the grill. Like, you know, there's no
pancake maker. You can just put the batter in. But
if you're at waffle house and no one's around, or
if they're just not that busy, you can actually convince
(02:51):
the grill operators to make these special items for you. What,
how do I not know that? Like I've been to
a waffle house a million times. It's a secret. You
just moved to the South about a year ago, and
so I don't know if you're quite ready for it.
But but now you try yeah, you just have to
be bold enough to ask really, Like, but you know,
waffles actually lets their chefs experiment, so things like Alice's
(03:11):
iced tea that was actually perfected by someone name Alice,
and there's an actual bird behind Bird's Chili. In fact,
our researcher Christopher was telling me that he knows two
chefs who've made their own specials. One was this hash
brown dish with jalapenos and grilled chicken and ranch dressing,
just cooked in a heap, and it's called Melvin Special.
And another one's called Hanks Burger and it was just
(03:33):
this special burger made with a regular patty and it
was mixed in with breakfast sausage. And neither of them
got enough support to be on the national menu. But like,
if you ask nicely, the grill operators might do things
like that, you know, like make you a burger with
waffles for a bun, which actually sounds pretty good to
be honest. Anyway, back to what you were saying earlier,
like they may even throw some waffle batter on the
(03:54):
grill and make you some pancakes. And is that any good?
Apparently no, it's lousy, but they will do it. And
that's just the kind of place waffle houses. So I
was looking on an urban dictionary this week, just trying
to find out if there are any terms related to
waffle house, and actually there are a lot that are
not for sensitive ears, But one definition I liked was
waffle house and waffle house and so, so, what what
(04:15):
does that mean? It's like when someone uses too many
huns and sweeties in their language and too many terms
of endument. So in a sense, you might say, like,
she's a nice person, but she does too much waffle houses.
That's kind of perfect actually, actually so in the weirder
parts of my research this week, this other story kept
coming up that I can't get out of my head,
and it's about this drunk couple. Apparently, like it was
(04:38):
pretty late and they were intoxicated, and you know, they
had eaten their meal, and they thought they were being discreet,
so they decided to go out back and mess around
in their pickup truck. But someone saw it and complained,
And when the cops came by and told them they
had to get out of the truck, the woman kept
trying to put on her shoes, like she just kept
trying to put her sandal on over and over, but
(05:00):
she was so drunk that she just kept sliding her
foot into a cheeseburger. It's crazy and disgusting. I know,
I don't know why it's so funny, but like, every
time I see a loose cheeseburger, from now on, I'm
gonna want to put my foot in a loose cheeseburger.
I told you this story, but you know, there are
(05:21):
occasional moments where we realize, like, yep, we're from Alabama.
And one of them was at a recent family gathering
over the holidays, and my cousin comes in the door
and he just starts out by saying, uh, you won't
believe this, but Tracy's car caught fire at the waffle house,
and we thought, all right, I think that's the most
Alabama thing I ever said. Anyway, But if you're open
(05:41):
all day, every day, and you're serving reliably cheap food,
you're going to attract all sorts of clients. I mean,
a second waffle only cost nine cents more, and a
grilled cheese is under two dollars. But you know, before
we start, I did want to make clear that both
you and I love waffle house like this isn't. In
some ironic way, we both just like waffle House. I know,
(06:02):
it almost feels like it's a write of passage here
in the South, and to me, it's almost like a
real slice of America, the same way that greyhound busses
are or used to be, Like, waffle houses feel like
they should be in a Paul Simon song to me.
But obviously I fell in love with waffle houses in
college in North Carolina because they were accessible and also
really easy on the wallet. But do you remember the
(06:23):
first time I came to Birmingham and you drove me
past the place where there were two waffle houses across
the road from one another. Do I remember this? This
was like the first stop on the tour. I mean,
this is this is a special moment. Yeah for me too.
But so we're obviously both big fans and familiar with
the house. But one of the things I saw this
week that was really fun to watch was Anthony Bourdain
(06:44):
going to a waffle house for the first time late
at night, and he's with that other famous chef, Sean Brock.
It was for his show Parts Unknown, And I don't know,
have you actually seen this episode. I haven't, but I
want to know. Yeah, it's great because Bourdaine's clearly never
been there, and and Brox the Southerner, and he just
loves the place, so he's basically they're like drunkenly evangelizing
(07:06):
of and trying to convert bourd into like loving waffle house.
And so he introduces him by building this waffle house
tasting menu. Apparently he does this for all his friends
the first time he takes him there. And so they
start with this pecan waffle, which of course is like
smothered in butter and syrup, and then they moved to
um a patty melt course, and then they have a
(07:26):
light salad with Thousand Island dressing, and then at some
point there's like a jump cut and they've been served
eggs and hash browns and and then they finished with
a t bone and pork chops like, all of which
they slather in sauce. Wow, that is a lot of
waffle house. I mean, it is definitely a recipe for
preventing a hangover. And Bourdaine's description of the place is great,
like he talks about it as the meal he wants
(07:48):
more than French laundry, which is that super high end
Thomas Keller Restaurants. I think part of the joy for
me and watching that clip wasn't just watching these two
people with really refined palets just devouring this food, but also,
like Sean Brock claims that this is where you first
watched people cook because the grill is really front center
at waffle House, right, Like obviously these places all have
(08:09):
the same footprint, but he gets really emotional about it,
and he he asked, like, where else can a kid
like him like get to watch this kind of service
and see all these mysteries of cooking revealed so openly.
You know, it's fun to think that waffle House inspired
a kid to grow up into one of the country's
best chefs. But now I do want to talk a
little bit about the restaurants elaborate system for plating foods,
(08:31):
and you know why chefs who train at waffle House
are so respected. But before we get into that, why
don't we start with a little waffle House background. I
know you had so much fun with this, you did
all the research on the history, said you want to
give us a little primer. Sure, So waffle House is
huge name, right, It's the number two family style restaurant chain,
which I guess really means diner, Like it's right behind
(08:51):
Denny's but ahead of High Hop on this list. And yeah,
and in terms of numbers, they're about waffle houses in
over two dozen states. This is primarily in the South,
and of course they do crazy business, So Christopher pull
these numbers for me. But the volume of food they
serve is insane. They serve over three hundred strips of
bacon and a hundred twenty five cups of coffee every
(09:13):
single minute. And get this, if you stacked up all
the sausage patties they serve in a single day, it'd
be taller than the Birch Khalifa building, which is itself
four times the height of the Empire. State Builders should
totally do this. They need to stack them up. Plus
they do about three hundred thousand waffles every day. But
the reason the place is called waffle house is pretty amazing.
(09:34):
You know, I've actually read about this, and isn't it.
It's because the waffles are the most profitable item they sell, right,
like they're at the most expensive item on the menu,
but they have the highest profit margin. Yeah, so apparently
the co founders wanted to encourage their customers to buy
more waffles by putting it right in the name, which
is super smart. I mean the other thing about the
co founders. They're named Joe Roger Sr. And Tom Forulkner,
(09:55):
but they were actually neighbors in Avondale Estates right here
in Georgia, and Mom was in real estate. But Joe
was working for a restaurant chain called Toddle House. I
had never actually heard of Toddle House, but I guess
they were really popular at one point and served an
incredible banana pudding. Anyway, he was pretty high up, but
Toddle House didn't allow employees to own restaurants, so the
(10:15):
neighbors decided they liked the idea of starting something they
could actually own, which they did on Labor Day nine.
So if Toddle House had just let Joe Senior invest,
what we'd probably be looking at? What was the term?
He said, maybe be toddle House on the web nout, Yeah,
And I'm pretty sure it was called toddle House because
toddlers were the most expensive item on their menu. That
sounds about right, actually, So I looked up a little
(10:38):
more about Toddle House, and while the chain was really popular.
It was only a counter with about ten stools max,
so only ten people could sit at them at any
one time, and there weren't any booths. So it was
actually a big deal when waffle House took some of
that model and made it more family friendly and suddenly
it wasn't just like a place for cops or nighthawks.
But the other thing I found fascinating was that Tom
(11:00):
was in real estate, and so much of the waffle
House model is based on really picking the right location.
Like waffle House doesn't do any marketing, and unlike Denny's
or Eyehop, you're not gonna find commercials for them on TV.
They kind of just let their cheap good food talk
for itself and you know, customers getting the word out
for them. But picking the right locations obviously matters. You know,
(11:22):
That's something I'd never really thought about before, Like I've
never seen a commercial for waffle House, but it never
really occurred to me that now I'm kind of writing
a jingle in my head about the waffle House song
would be. But anyway, I did read this piece where
the founders would actually go to prospective locations and they
just sit on the side of the road there, and
what they do is they like count the traffic and
see how many cars were passing by on these rainy
(11:43):
days before they would really decide to make that investment.
And it's also why waffle house colors are yellow and black.
So there's this common myth that you know, these colors
are attribute to Georgia Tech because Joe Rogers Senior happened
to go there, which you might have made sense, but
it's actually black and yellow because it reminded them of
a school buss visibility and that you could still see
it in that heavy rain or heavy fog. Well, you know,
(12:06):
they're actually a lot of little myths like that. Like
there's also this idea that waffle houses break their locks
in a ceremony when they first opened a store, because
you know, the places there are twenty four hours, so
they don't need them. But the doors do lock because
you want to be able to close the doors if
you're remodeling, or you know, to protect your customers from
a parking lot full of people putting their feet into cheeseburger.
Of course, but you know what waffle houses don't have really, Yeah,
(12:31):
it doesn't that blow your mind anyway, I want to
talk about some of the secrets of the waffle house
kitchen and how they stay open during emergencies, and why
academics use waffle house as an economic indicator. But before
we dive into any of that, let's take a quick break.
(12:57):
Welcome back to Part Time Genius, where today we're talking
all things affle House. Now, before we get into FEMA
and why waffle houses don't have ovens, I did want
you to know that waffle House is inspired a surprising
amount of art, including this book of poetry I found
called waffle House Prophets by Kenny Peevey. I just want
to say, Kenny Peavey a lot. You should and and
(13:18):
because April is National Poetry Month, you can. And I
thought i'd recite the first poem from this book. It's
called Jesus stumbled in. Oh you're ready already, I've already
got chill bumps. So Jesus slipped into this place just
the other night. Many people thought he was just another drunk,
a beggar, or a trucker unhappy with his order. So
(13:42):
that's it. That's that's the hoopful. It's pretty deep. Actually,
I don't know if it's deep or not, because I
don't really understand poetry, but just the idea of Jesus
said a waffle house feels deep to me. I Like,
how you just blamed all of poetry for this one.
That's great, all right, Well, let's shift to something a
little less poetic and talk about waffle house and disaster time. So,
and this is always such an interesting thing to look into,
(14:03):
and a lot has been made in the press about
the fact that FEMA has this unofficial waffle house index,
you know, when they're trying to determine, you know, how
an area is doing after a storm. Well, green means
that the waffle house is functioning like normal, you know,
full electricity, full menu. Yellow is when they're serving a
limited menu and drawing energy off of a generator. And
then red is when the weather is so bad that
(14:24):
waffle house is closed and it's five thirty eight, puts
it it's time to panic. And what's weird, though, is
how rare this is. For example, in two thousand eleven,
when Hurricane Irene hit twenty two waffle houses lost power.
Only one of them closed for more than a single day,
which is incredible, But like, how do they pull that off?
How do they manage to stay stocked up. Well. Part
(14:46):
of it is just how thoughtful they are about the
food that they're serving, Like they have this very limited
no water menu for when the water main breaks, hamburgers,
grilled cheese, sandwiches, sausage, biscuits. It's amazing that they're still
pumping out food. But preparation and communication is just super
important to the company, So every employee gets instructions and
these preparedness cards, and these details come from a trade
(15:09):
magazine about supply chains. But essentially waffle House has this
hierarchy who can stay to work and who has family needs,
and they are these jump teams like these are the
emergency workers that can come in to help a reinforcement.
And part of the genius of waffle houses because the
chefs and the wait staff they're all using the same system,
so they're basically plug in play. So you can put
(15:29):
one grill chef in another location and they'd be able
to function just the same. I mean, that's so simple.
It's it's kind of like how Southwest I think only
used one type of plane for all its pilots, and
also because it made its repairs easier, like it had
all these extra efficiencies it is pretty amazing. Yeah, I mean,
the other genius of the system is that every restaurant
has a nearby warehouse stocked with these foods. I've never
(15:51):
seen one of these. I didn't even know this existed,
but these are all these non perishable items that could
get them through a week of the worst conditions. And
it's just incredibly buttoned up and everybody knows their responsibilities
both before and during any sort of disaster. I mean,
all of that is remarkable, and I do want to
get into some of the kitchen stuff soon. But the
(16:11):
BBC did this big list of food as economic indicators,
and of course waffle House was on there with their
link to FEMA indicating how fast businesses will recover. But
there are some other things on the list as well.
I know we've talked about, like the big Back Index,
and uh, if you look at the price of a
big mac across the globe, you can actually compare the
prices and understand things about the economies, Like if a
big mac costs five dollars in the US but to
(16:34):
seventy five in Turkey, you can actually tell that the
currency there is undervalued. But because Big max haven't invaded
Africa in the same way they've taken off in other
parts of the world. Economists lean more on KFC to
analyze purchasing power there, so there are a lot of
kfcas and I guess so you can also look at
potato sales and French fry sales and Asia's and economic indicator. Basically,
(16:55):
when fry sales go down and the US farmers get hit,
it's a pretty good sign that the Asian economy isn't
working like it should be. You know, I love that
type of stuff for some reason. I've actually read recently
that Mars bars in the UK have mostly stayed steady
with the buying power of the pound. So you can
use the price of Mars bars to see that train
travel costs have gone down over the years, you know,
while graduate school salaries have gone up. It's I love
(17:18):
this kind of I want to do a whole episode
on it. So let's get back in the kitchen, because
I do want to hear about how the wait staff
gets all of those orders correct. Yeah, the ordering in
the plating is clearly in the art. In fact, I
read this great article called Around the Clock at waffle House,
and one of the lines in there is from a
fancy chef in town who basically says, if you see
waffle House on a chef's resume, hire them. I mean,
(17:40):
the volume of orders can be insane, but the whole
goal of waffle House is to have every table in
and out in twenty minutes, so their turnover is supposed
to be that fast, at least optimally. Yeah, I mean
that makes sense, like they want to welcome you but
also make sure you can like make it a quick
pit stop if you have to get back on the road.
But of course, if the restaurant is empty, waffle House
isn't gonna haras see you. Like They're gonna let you
(18:01):
sit there and read a book and sip your coffee
if you want. Yeah. I love the signs that say
they have free WiFi. Just the idea of like sticky
syrup and the computers that I don't know about that,
but but it is why waffle House was so late
to take credit cards, Like they only started taking credit
cards I think it was in two thousand and six
because cash was just that much faster. But the system
(18:21):
for ordering is fascinating. It's called pull, drop and mark,
So after an order gets taken, the server writes it
on a pad and then they yell pull, and if
you've been there, you've noticed them doing this, like pull
three bacons, which gets pulled from the fridge. Then they
yell the drop, which means drop to hash browns on
the grill or whatever specifics they're mentioning, and then they
yell mark, and that's where the grill operator marks down
(18:42):
the combination on a plate. This all comes from this
bone Apotite article where the writer Andrew Knowlton, he tried
to work at a waffle house I think for twenty
four hours. Definitely got to work out in the process.
So obviously the mark part of that is where all
that like elaborate plating stuff happens. And you know, I've
seen on social media how if you range a pat
(19:02):
of butter on a plate, it tells the cheft that
not only do they need to cook a t bone,
but the direction of the butter actually says how well
to cook it? Yeah, and and speaking which they actually
serve four tea bones a minute. You somehow forgot this
one when you're stacking up sausage patties earlier. According to
the company, they serve more tea bones than any other
establishment in the world. I love that this is the
(19:24):
thing they can brag about, but it is pretty amazing
actually about I think it's a hundred and thirty five
million of them since opening in nineteen. Lot of t bones.
But back to the planning, you're right, I mean, the
system is definitely elaborate. An apple butter on a plate
indicates a certain type of toast, or a jelly packet
at the bottom of a plate means scrambled eggs. There's
a cheat sheet, of course, but at some point it
(19:45):
becomes second nature if you work in the grill long enough,
which you know. It's why you can bring in a
cook during an emergency and they don't miss a beat.
I mean, the other thing I'm obsessed with, partially because
I never noticed this before, is that waffle houses don't
have fryers, right like, they don't have fires, and they
don't have ovens, So when they make biscuits, they're just
using these like frozen pucks that they cook on the girl. Yeah,
(20:06):
and as much as I love waff house, I will
say biscuits are not the specialty. There by any means
no offense to them, but that it's just not and
the deep Friar thing is interesting though, because all their
competitors use them, you know, Denny's uses them, waffle King,
and of course huddle House huddle House. I love that
there's a toddle house, a waffle House, and a huddle House,
like so many houses. I actually looked up the huddle
(20:29):
House slogan just because you know, I figured out had
to be like huddle up at the huddle House or
something that's not that's totally this opportunity, and instead it's uh,
any meal anytime, breakfast, lunch, dinner. I just like that
what the meals are. Well, it's actually interesting to contrast
that slogan with waffle House's latest slogan. Yeah, much like
(20:51):
waffle House, the purpose for huddle House was to create community.
It was called huddle house because they wanted people to
huddle up there after the big high school football game
or some other cool event. But you know, that slogan
any meal anytime is pretty generic. And then waffle House,
by contrast, tries to be as focused on its employees
as it is its customers. So it's really interesting to
think about this as a slogan. So their most recent
(21:13):
motto is America's place to work, America's place to eat.
And you know, apparently you can't open a waffle House
franchise unless you've worked there. And I was reading that
like all the back office employees actually have to spend
a day working in the restaurants, and supposedly employees also
get stock at the company for the service. I saw
that written about a lot. I actually couldn't find too
(21:34):
much on that front. But the one thing I do
know is that both Tom and Joe Sr. Really loved
working at the stores, and they loved the community that
the stores seemed to foster around them. And while they
wanted waffle House to be fast they actually never wanted
it to be fast food, Hence you know those ceramic
plates and some of the other little family oriented touches.
But before we finish up, I I do want to
(21:55):
talk a little bit about race relations at waffle House
and how the company is historically positioned itself. But before
we get into that, let's take a quick break. Welcome
(22:16):
back to Part Time Genius, where we're talking all things
waffle House now, MAGA, before we get to the fun facts,
and I know you wanted to talk a little bit
about some of the issues waffle House has faced with,
you know, race or race relations over the years, and
also what their philosophy has been all along. Yeah, so
one of the things waffle House talks about a lot
is inclusion. The name of their in house magazine is inc,
(22:37):
which apparently stands for inclusion. And also there's weird things
in pop culture, like there's a John Mayer song where
the lyrics are, quote Martin Luther King had a dream
and I think waffle House was in it, which just
feels a little ridiculous to me. And anyway, the way
the company and others talk about the chain is almost
as a place that's kind of egalitarian but also consciously diverse.
(22:59):
Like the company's sponsored hip hop film festivals. Uh, they've
actually sponsored international volunteering programs, and they actually try to
celebrate the stories of all types of people who work
their way up in management at the company. There was
also this Daily Show segment. I don't know if you've
seen it, and this only like tangentially relates to waffle House,
but the Daily Show set this fake gay couple to
(23:20):
propose to one another in an Alabama and Mississippi waffle house,
you know, just to see the reactions, and in both
places people just kind of politely applauded and went on
with their business. Yeah, it was undercover, but you know,
it kind of seemed to show that everyone's welcome there.
But there's also been a disconcerting amount of discrimination lawsuits
over the years filed against the company, and and that
(23:42):
worried me. So I wanted to look into that, and
so what's the corporate response to that. Ben They've they've
kind of doubled down on the in house storytelling with
things like their Inclusion magazine, but they also talked about
it like it's a problem of growing too fast, too quickly,
and that it's a little hard to reinforce values across
news stores. But it did make me wonder about the
early days and whether waffle House had the sort of
(24:03):
sit ins and counter protests that you saw in other
places in the South, and did that you know, I
always think of Atlanta as you know, the city that's
too busy to hate, but but obviously that wasn't the
case everywhere in the city. Yeah. So the only account
I could find was in the Atlanta Daily World, which
had a segregation as bent, I guess, but their account
of the story, and this is in nineteen six four,
was that twelve protesters came in and they weren't served.
(24:26):
But instead of serving some people and not others, the
headwaiter just stopped service for everyone at the store and
until he got like a response from his manager, and
then an hour or so later, the management confirmed that
everyone should be served, regardless of race. And you know,
when the story was told years later, Joe Senior claimed
that he was personally involved in the decision and that
waffle House was always built as a place of integration.
(24:49):
I mean, I'm guessing there were plenty of waffle Houses
where people weren't treated fairly, but it is nice to
hear that those twelve protesters got served, and you know
that no one was served until a decision was made.
And I like thinking of waffles and its most ideal terms,
and I guess Anthony Bourdain came away thinking that way too,
So why don't we end this with a quote from
him about waffle House. Waffle House is indeed marvelous, an
(25:13):
irony free zone where everything is beautiful and nothing hurts,
where everybody, regardless of race, creed, color, or degree of inebriation,
is welcomed. It's warm yellow glow, a beacon of hope
and salvation, inviting the hungry, the loss, the seriously hammered
all across the south and side, a place of safety
and nourishment. It never closes. It is always, always faithful,
(25:36):
always there for you. I like that. So time for
the fact of time for the fact though, m did
you know that waffle House played a role in the
birth of Reddit. According to a co founder, Alex Shnian quote,
(25:56):
I walked out of an ls at prep course and
into a waffle House and real as I wanted to
not be a lawyer and that I had better come
up with something better. And to me read it definitely
feels like a more interesting path. Yeah, I'm super interesting path.
All right. So you remember how I told you about
waffle Houses record label at the top of the show.
So they don't just put out the six singles like
the ones I was telling you about. Waffle House Records
(26:17):
also occasionally puts out music videos. It wasn't this amazing.
It's first released in two thousand seven was just called
Bert and it was named for the chili. So did
you know that in the very early days waffle House
helped to launch Chick fil A Sandwiches. I mean, they're
both Atlanta brands, and waffle House got a license to seldom,
which made it more popular. Wow, I had never heard
(26:40):
that before. All right, well, here's a strange fact. The
two co founders of waffle House, Tom and Joe, they
died within one month of each other. Tom died at
the age of nineties seven, while Joe died at the
age of eight. That's amazing. I don't know why I
didn't know this earlier, But did you know that waffle
House cater's mules and if you have more than twenty
(27:00):
guests are planning to spend more than two dollars, they'll
offer a quote the same unique experiences in a restaurant.
They also have a food truck called the Waffle Truck
that looks like a restaurant on wheels. I don't know
how I didn't know this, but I do know that
I'm going to put in a request for this here
at one of the house. I feel like for all
the Southern companies we worked for, we should have had
like a catered meal from waffle I don't that's gonna
(27:22):
be interesting. I wonder how the catering works, like do
do waffles travel well? Waffle truck? Yeah? Well, apparently when
a man walked into a South Carolina Waffles at two
am and found the one employee asleep, he actually took
his meal into his own hands. He waited about ten
minutes and then he took selfies as he cooked a
double bacon cheese steak melt on the grill. I love
(27:44):
that he wouldn't just like make bacon and eggs like.
He went all out with this and then he cleaned
the grill. Later, the waff Fliles actually offered him a job.
I'm guessing that other guy probably didn't take his job well.
When a teenage waitress was photographed cutting up food for
an older patron and Lamarck, Texas, it went viral this
year and in her honor, the town's mayor declared March eighth, two,
(28:06):
eighteen nine Williams Day. And even better than that, Texas
Southern University actually offered her a scholarship for four thousand
dollars a semester, which is amazing, Right, that's a lot
of money. Well, what's amazing is that you read those
sorts of stories all over the place. In the Bonappetite story,
Andrew Knowlton talks about how easy it is to recognize
the waffle house lean, as he calls it, when patrons
(28:28):
are drunk and sleepy. And you know how you watched
a wonderful waitress put a cold towel on a patron's neck,
given this little shoulder massage and and revive him. But
but that's actually not my fact. That's just the sweet story.
So my last one is, did you know that every
year waffle house celebrates Valentine's Day? Didn't? They do it
up with table cloths and candles? And it apparently started
(28:49):
at a John's Creek waffle house close by here, but
now over a hundred and fifty different places celebrate. And
it isn't an easy reservation to get. You've actually got
to reserve well in advanced if you want to dine
cheap with your sweetie. So I think maybe we know
what we're doing with our wives next Valentine definitely, And
I love the idea of table cloths and candle lay
and a little no socks, no shirt, no knuckle heads
(29:12):
playing from that waffle house juke box, which is a
real song. But I think you have to take home
today's golden waffle Oh wow, I'm so honored. All right, Well,
thank you guys for listening today. If we forgot any
great facts about waffle house or waffles or grit I'm
just getting hungry thinking about this, we would love to
hear those from you. You can email us part Time
Genius at how stuff Works dot com or hit us
(29:33):
up on our seven fact hot line that's one eight
four four pt Genius, or obviously you can reach us
on Facebook or Twitter. Thanks so much for listening. Thanks
(29:55):
again for listening. Part Time Genius is a production of
How Stuff Works and wouldn't be possible without several brilliant
people who do the important things we couldn't even begin
to understand. Tristan McNeil does the editing thing. Noel Brown
made the theme song and does the MIXI mixy sound thing.
Jerry Rowland does the exact producer thing. Gave Bluesier is
our lead researcher, with support from the Research Army including
Austin Thompson, Nolan Brown and Lucas Adams and Eve Jeff
(30:18):
Cook gets the show to your ears. Good job, Eves.
If you like what you heard, we hope you'll subscribe,
And if you really really like what you've heard. Maybe
you could leave a good review for us. Do we
do we forget Jason? Jason who
Guess what Mango? What's that will? So I know, we
were looking at the list of all the celebrities and
musicians especially that love going to waffle House, and the
list just cracks me up. Like Kim and Kanye supposedly
double date there. Donnie Wahlberg, who yes, I consider a musician.
He also gives these insane tips there. Apparently Kid Rock
chooses to get in brawls there, which is really not
(00:21):
that surprising. But for all the musicians who eat there,
did you realize that waffle House actually has its own
music label. You can play the songs on their juke
boxes right there. You know. As much as I've been
in waffle House, like, I can't say I've ever actually
paid attention to the music really, and I probably hadn't
either until I was there with my son and he
started singing a Garth Brooks song along with the jukebox.
(00:43):
I was like, how did you know this song? Anyway? So, actually,
some of the great ones that are on the list
of songs that are part of their label. There's uh,
there are Raisins in My Toast by Danny Jones. You
really want to check this one out, or they're cooking
up My Order Boy by ALFREDA. Gerald. I guess well,
apparently that's by design, and according to waffle House, they
(01:03):
want the music to set the mood, like, not be
an advertisement that just droned waffle House, waffle House, waffle House.
You know, they actually set this high standard and if
it sounds too much like a jingle, they refused to
put it on waffle House records. I just love saying
waffle House records. But that's just the first of a
heaping pile of waffle House facts we're about to dive into.
So let's dig in y day their podcast listeners, Welcome
(01:46):
to Part Time Genius. I'm Will Pearson and as always
I'm joined by my good friend Man Guesh Ticketer and
sitting behind that soundproof glass wearing a shirt that says
Toast of the town. It's just got a big old
piece of French toast at the top of it. That's
our pal and produce, Sir Tristan McNeil. You know, he
is the toast of the toast of the town. But
I'm kind of surprised he didn't pick like a more
(02:07):
waffle House centric shirt, like one that said, uh, I
don't know, like scattered, smothered or covered or our house
is a very very fine waffle house. And I mean
waffle house doesn't even serve French toast. It's true, And
that's maybe the most critical I've ever heard of you
being one of Tristan's shirts or props. But anyway, that
they mostly don't serve French toast, and they also don't
(02:28):
serve pancakes. So that's actually something I've always wondered about,
Like waffle seems so much harder to make than pancakes,
at least for me. You know, I've read that the
thing with pancakes is that, unlike waffles, they're really hard
to standardize on the grill. Like, you know, there's no
pancake maker. You can just put the batter in. But
if you're at waffle house and no one's around, or
if they're just not that busy, you can actually convince
(02:51):
the grill operators to make these special items for you. What,
how do I not know that? Like I've been to
a waffle house a million times. It's a secret. You
just moved to the South about a year ago, and
so I don't know if you're quite ready for it.
But but now you try yeah, you just have to
be bold enough to ask really, Like, but you know,
waffles actually lets their chefs experiment, so things like Alice's
(03:11):
iced tea that was actually perfected by someone name Alice,
and there's an actual bird behind Bird's Chili. In fact,
our researcher Christopher was telling me that he knows two
chefs who've made their own specials. One was this hash
brown dish with jalapenos and grilled chicken and ranch dressing,
just cooked in a heap, and it's called Melvin Special.
And another one's called Hanks Burger and it was just
(03:33):
this special burger made with a regular patty and it
was mixed in with breakfast sausage. And neither of them
got enough support to be on the national menu. But like,
if you ask nicely, the grill operators might do things
like that, you know, like make you a burger with
waffles for a bun, which actually sounds pretty good to
be honest. Anyway, back to what you were saying earlier,
like they may even throw some waffle batter on the
(03:54):
grill and make you some pancakes. And is that any good?
Apparently no, it's lousy, but they will do it. And
that's just the kind of place waffle houses. So I
was looking on an urban dictionary this week, just trying
to find out if there are any terms related to
waffle house, and actually there are a lot that are
not for sensitive ears, But one definition I liked was
waffle house and waffle house and so, so, what what
(04:15):
does that mean? It's like when someone uses too many
huns and sweeties in their language and too many terms
of endument. So in a sense, you might say, like,
she's a nice person, but she does too much waffle houses.
That's kind of perfect actually, actually so in the weirder
parts of my research this week, this other story kept
coming up that I can't get out of my head,
and it's about this drunk couple. Apparently, like it was
(04:38):
pretty late and they were intoxicated, and you know, they
had eaten their meal, and they thought they were being discreet,
so they decided to go out back and mess around
in their pickup truck. But someone saw it and complained,
And when the cops came by and told them they
had to get out of the truck, the woman kept
trying to put on her shoes, like she just kept
trying to put her sandal on over and over, but
(05:00):
she was so drunk that she just kept sliding her
foot into a cheeseburger. It's crazy and disgusting. I know,
I don't know why it's so funny, but like, every
time I see a loose cheeseburger, from now on, I'm
gonna want to put my foot in a loose cheeseburger.
I told you this story, but you know, there are
(05:21):
occasional moments where we realize, like, yep, we're from Alabama.
And one of them was at a recent family gathering
over the holidays, and my cousin comes in the door
and he just starts out by saying, uh, you won't
believe this, but Tracy's car caught fire at the waffle house,
and we thought, all right, I think that's the most
Alabama thing I ever said. Anyway, But if you're open
(05:41):
all day, every day, and you're serving reliably cheap food,
you're going to attract all sorts of clients. I mean,
a second waffle only cost nine cents more, and a
grilled cheese is under two dollars. But you know, before
we start, I did want to make clear that both
you and I love waffle house like this isn't. In
some ironic way, we both just like waffle House. I know,
(06:02):
it almost feels like it's a write of passage here
in the South, and to me, it's almost like a
real slice of America, the same way that greyhound busses
are or used to be, Like, waffle houses feel like
they should be in a Paul Simon song to me.
But obviously I fell in love with waffle houses in
college in North Carolina because they were accessible and also
really easy on the wallet. But do you remember the
(06:23):
first time I came to Birmingham and you drove me
past the place where there were two waffle houses across
the road from one another. Do I remember this? This
was like the first stop on the tour. I mean,
this is this is a special moment. Yeah for me too.
But so we're obviously both big fans and familiar with
the house. But one of the things I saw this
week that was really fun to watch was Anthony Bourdain
(06:44):
going to a waffle house for the first time late
at night, and he's with that other famous chef, Sean Brock.
It was for his show Parts Unknown, And I don't know,
have you actually seen this episode. I haven't, but I
want to know. Yeah, it's great because Bourdaine's clearly never
been there, and and Brox the Southerner, and he just
loves the place, so he's basically they're like drunkenly evangelizing
(07:06):
of and trying to convert bourd into like loving waffle house.
And so he introduces him by building this waffle house
tasting menu. Apparently he does this for all his friends
the first time he takes him there. And so they
start with this pecan waffle, which of course is like
smothered in butter and syrup, and then they moved to
um a patty melt course, and then they have a
(07:26):
light salad with Thousand Island dressing, and then at some
point there's like a jump cut and they've been served
eggs and hash browns and and then they finished with
a t bone and pork chops like, all of which
they slather in sauce. Wow, that is a lot of
waffle house. I mean, it is definitely a recipe for
preventing a hangover. And Bourdaine's description of the place is great,
like he talks about it as the meal he wants
(07:48):
more than French laundry, which is that super high end
Thomas Keller Restaurants. I think part of the joy for
me and watching that clip wasn't just watching these two
people with really refined palets just devouring this food, but also,
like Sean Brock claims that this is where you first
watched people cook because the grill is really front center
at waffle House, right, Like obviously these places all have
(08:09):
the same footprint, but he gets really emotional about it,
and he he asked, like, where else can a kid
like him like get to watch this kind of service
and see all these mysteries of cooking revealed so openly.
You know, it's fun to think that waffle House inspired
a kid to grow up into one of the country's
best chefs. But now I do want to talk a
little bit about the restaurants elaborate system for plating foods,
(08:31):
and you know why chefs who train at waffle House
are so respected. But before we get into that, why
don't we start with a little waffle House background. I
know you had so much fun with this, you did
all the research on the history, said you want to
give us a little primer. Sure, So waffle House is
huge name, right, It's the number two family style restaurant chain,
which I guess really means diner, Like it's right behind
(08:51):
Denny's but ahead of High Hop on this list. And yeah,
and in terms of numbers, they're about waffle houses in
over two dozen states. This is primarily in the South,
and of course they do crazy business, So Christopher pull
these numbers for me. But the volume of food they
serve is insane. They serve over three hundred strips of
bacon and a hundred twenty five cups of coffee every
(09:13):
single minute. And get this, if you stacked up all
the sausage patties they serve in a single day, it'd
be taller than the Birch Khalifa building, which is itself
four times the height of the Empire. State Builders should
totally do this. They need to stack them up. Plus
they do about three hundred thousand waffles every day. But
the reason the place is called waffle house is pretty amazing.
(09:34):
You know, I've actually read about this, and isn't it.
It's because the waffles are the most profitable item they sell, right,
like they're at the most expensive item on the menu,
but they have the highest profit margin. Yeah, so apparently
the co founders wanted to encourage their customers to buy
more waffles by putting it right in the name, which
is super smart. I mean the other thing about the
co founders. They're named Joe Roger Sr. And Tom Forulkner,
(09:55):
but they were actually neighbors in Avondale Estates right here
in Georgia, and Mom was in real estate. But Joe
was working for a restaurant chain called Toddle House. I
had never actually heard of Toddle House, but I guess
they were really popular at one point and served an
incredible banana pudding. Anyway, he was pretty high up, but
Toddle House didn't allow employees to own restaurants, so the
(10:15):
neighbors decided they liked the idea of starting something they
could actually own, which they did on Labor Day nine.
So if Toddle House had just let Joe Senior invest,
what we'd probably be looking at? What was the term?
He said, maybe be toddle House on the web nout, Yeah,
And I'm pretty sure it was called toddle House because
toddlers were the most expensive item on their menu. That
sounds about right, actually, So I looked up a little
(10:38):
more about Toddle House, and while the chain was really popular.
It was only a counter with about ten stools max,
so only ten people could sit at them at any
one time, and there weren't any booths. So it was
actually a big deal when waffle House took some of
that model and made it more family friendly and suddenly
it wasn't just like a place for cops or nighthawks.
But the other thing I found fascinating was that Tom
(11:00):
was in real estate, and so much of the waffle
House model is based on really picking the right location.
Like waffle House doesn't do any marketing, and unlike Denny's
or Eyehop, you're not gonna find commercials for them on TV.
They kind of just let their cheap good food talk
for itself and you know, customers getting the word out
for them. But picking the right locations obviously matters. You know,
(11:22):
That's something I'd never really thought about before, Like I've
never seen a commercial for waffle House, but it never
really occurred to me that now I'm kind of writing
a jingle in my head about the waffle House song
would be. But anyway, I did read this piece where
the founders would actually go to prospective locations and they
just sit on the side of the road there, and
what they do is they like count the traffic and
see how many cars were passing by on these rainy
(11:43):
days before they would really decide to make that investment.
And it's also why waffle house colors are yellow and black.
So there's this common myth that you know, these colors
are attribute to Georgia Tech because Joe Rogers Senior happened
to go there, which you might have made sense, but
it's actually black and yellow because it reminded them of
a school buss visibility and that you could still see
it in that heavy rain or heavy fog. Well, you know,
(12:06):
they're actually a lot of little myths like that. Like
there's also this idea that waffle houses break their locks
in a ceremony when they first opened a store, because
you know, the places there are twenty four hours, so
they don't need them. But the doors do lock because
you want to be able to close the doors if
you're remodeling, or you know, to protect your customers from
a parking lot full of people putting their feet into cheeseburger.
Of course, but you know what waffle houses don't have really, Yeah,
(12:31):
it doesn't that blow your mind anyway, I want to
talk about some of the secrets of the waffle house
kitchen and how they stay open during emergencies, and why
academics use waffle house as an economic indicator. But before
we dive into any of that, let's take a quick break.
(12:57):
Welcome back to Part Time Genius, where today we're talking
all things affle House. Now, before we get into FEMA
and why waffle houses don't have ovens, I did want
you to know that waffle House is inspired a surprising
amount of art, including this book of poetry I found
called waffle House Prophets by Kenny Peevey. I just want
to say, Kenny Peavey a lot. You should and and
(13:18):
because April is National Poetry Month, you can. And I
thought i'd recite the first poem from this book. It's
called Jesus stumbled in. Oh you're ready already, I've already
got chill bumps. So Jesus slipped into this place just
the other night. Many people thought he was just another drunk,
a beggar, or a trucker unhappy with his order. So
(13:42):
that's it. That's that's the hoopful. It's pretty deep. Actually,
I don't know if it's deep or not, because I
don't really understand poetry, but just the idea of Jesus
said a waffle house feels deep to me. I Like,
how you just blamed all of poetry for this one.
That's great, all right, Well, let's shift to something a
little less poetic and talk about waffle house and disaster time. So,
and this is always such an interesting thing to look into,
(14:03):
and a lot has been made in the press about
the fact that FEMA has this unofficial waffle house index,
you know, when they're trying to determine, you know, how
an area is doing after a storm. Well, green means
that the waffle house is functioning like normal, you know,
full electricity, full menu. Yellow is when they're serving a
limited menu and drawing energy off of a generator. And
then red is when the weather is so bad that
(14:24):
waffle house is closed and it's five thirty eight, puts
it it's time to panic. And what's weird, though, is
how rare this is. For example, in two thousand eleven,
when Hurricane Irene hit twenty two waffle houses lost power.
Only one of them closed for more than a single day,
which is incredible, But like, how do they pull that off?
How do they manage to stay stocked up. Well. Part
(14:46):
of it is just how thoughtful they are about the
food that they're serving, Like they have this very limited
no water menu for when the water main breaks, hamburgers,
grilled cheese, sandwiches, sausage, biscuits. It's amazing that they're still
pumping out food. But preparation and communication is just super
important to the company, So every employee gets instructions and
these preparedness cards, and these details come from a trade
(15:09):
magazine about supply chains. But essentially waffle House has this
hierarchy who can stay to work and who has family needs,
and they are these jump teams like these are the
emergency workers that can come in to help a reinforcement.
And part of the genius of waffle houses because the
chefs and the wait staff they're all using the same system,
so they're basically plug in play. So you can put
(15:29):
one grill chef in another location and they'd be able
to function just the same. I mean, that's so simple.
It's it's kind of like how Southwest I think only
used one type of plane for all its pilots, and
also because it made its repairs easier, like it had
all these extra efficiencies it is pretty amazing. Yeah, I mean,
the other genius of the system is that every restaurant
has a nearby warehouse stocked with these foods. I've never
(15:51):
seen one of these. I didn't even know this existed,
but these are all these non perishable items that could
get them through a week of the worst conditions. And
it's just incredibly buttoned up and everybody knows their responsibilities
both before and during any sort of disaster. I mean,
all of that is remarkable, and I do want to
get into some of the kitchen stuff soon. But the
(16:11):
BBC did this big list of food as economic indicators,
and of course waffle House was on there with their
link to FEMA indicating how fast businesses will recover. But
there are some other things on the list as well.
I know we've talked about, like the big Back Index,
and uh, if you look at the price of a
big mac across the globe, you can actually compare the
prices and understand things about the economies, Like if a
big mac costs five dollars in the US but to
(16:34):
seventy five in Turkey, you can actually tell that the
currency there is undervalued. But because Big max haven't invaded
Africa in the same way they've taken off in other
parts of the world. Economists lean more on KFC to
analyze purchasing power there, so there are a lot of
kfcas and I guess so you can also look at
potato sales and French fry sales and Asia's and economic indicator. Basically,
(16:55):
when fry sales go down and the US farmers get hit,
it's a pretty good sign that the Asian economy isn't
working like it should be. You know, I love that
type of stuff for some reason. I've actually read recently
that Mars bars in the UK have mostly stayed steady
with the buying power of the pound. So you can
use the price of Mars bars to see that train
travel costs have gone down over the years, you know,
while graduate school salaries have gone up. It's I love
(17:18):
this kind of I want to do a whole episode
on it. So let's get back in the kitchen, because
I do want to hear about how the wait staff
gets all of those orders correct. Yeah, the ordering in
the plating is clearly in the art. In fact, I
read this great article called Around the Clock at waffle House,
and one of the lines in there is from a
fancy chef in town who basically says, if you see
waffle House on a chef's resume, hire them. I mean,
(17:40):
the volume of orders can be insane, but the whole
goal of waffle House is to have every table in
and out in twenty minutes, so their turnover is supposed
to be that fast, at least optimally. Yeah, I mean
that makes sense, like they want to welcome you but
also make sure you can like make it a quick
pit stop if you have to get back on the road.
But of course, if the restaurant is empty, waffle House
isn't gonna haras see you. Like They're gonna let you
(18:01):
sit there and read a book and sip your coffee
if you want. Yeah. I love the signs that say
they have free WiFi. Just the idea of like sticky
syrup and the computers that I don't know about that,
but but it is why waffle House was so late
to take credit cards, Like they only started taking credit
cards I think it was in two thousand and six
because cash was just that much faster. But the system
(18:21):
for ordering is fascinating. It's called pull, drop and mark,
So after an order gets taken, the server writes it
on a pad and then they yell pull, and if
you've been there, you've noticed them doing this, like pull
three bacons, which gets pulled from the fridge. Then they
yell the drop, which means drop to hash browns on
the grill or whatever specifics they're mentioning, and then they
yell mark, and that's where the grill operator marks down
(18:42):
the combination on a plate. This all comes from this
bone Apotite article where the writer Andrew Knowlton, he tried
to work at a waffle house I think for twenty
four hours. Definitely got to work out in the process.
So obviously the mark part of that is where all
that like elaborate plating stuff happens. And you know, I've
seen on social media how if you range a pat
(19:02):
of butter on a plate, it tells the cheft that
not only do they need to cook a t bone,
but the direction of the butter actually says how well
to cook it? Yeah, and and speaking which they actually
serve four tea bones a minute. You somehow forgot this
one when you're stacking up sausage patties earlier. According to
the company, they serve more tea bones than any other
establishment in the world. I love that this is the
(19:24):
thing they can brag about, but it is pretty amazing
actually about I think it's a hundred and thirty five
million of them since opening in nineteen. Lot of t bones.
But back to the planning, you're right, I mean, the
system is definitely elaborate. An apple butter on a plate
indicates a certain type of toast, or a jelly packet
at the bottom of a plate means scrambled eggs. There's
a cheat sheet, of course, but at some point it
(19:45):
becomes second nature if you work in the grill long enough,
which you know. It's why you can bring in a
cook during an emergency and they don't miss a beat.
I mean, the other thing I'm obsessed with, partially because
I never noticed this before, is that waffle houses don't
have fryers, right like, they don't have fires, and they
don't have ovens, So when they make biscuits, they're just
using these like frozen pucks that they cook on the girl. Yeah,
(20:06):
and as much as I love waff house, I will
say biscuits are not the specialty. There by any means
no offense to them, but that it's just not and
the deep Friar thing is interesting though, because all their
competitors use them, you know, Denny's uses them, waffle King,
and of course huddle House huddle House. I love that
there's a toddle house, a waffle House, and a huddle House,
like so many houses. I actually looked up the huddle
(20:29):
House slogan just because you know, I figured out had
to be like huddle up at the huddle House or
something that's not that's totally this opportunity, and instead it's uh,
any meal anytime, breakfast, lunch, dinner. I just like that
what the meals are. Well, it's actually interesting to contrast
that slogan with waffle House's latest slogan. Yeah, much like
(20:51):
waffle House, the purpose for huddle House was to create community.
It was called huddle house because they wanted people to
huddle up there after the big high school football game
or some other cool event. But you know, that slogan
any meal anytime is pretty generic. And then waffle House,
by contrast, tries to be as focused on its employees
as it is its customers. So it's really interesting to
think about this as a slogan. So their most recent
(21:13):
motto is America's place to work, America's place to eat.
And you know, apparently you can't open a waffle House
franchise unless you've worked there. And I was reading that
like all the back office employees actually have to spend
a day working in the restaurants, and supposedly employees also
get stock at the company for the service. I saw
that written about a lot. I actually couldn't find too
(21:34):
much on that front. But the one thing I do
know is that both Tom and Joe Sr. Really loved
working at the stores, and they loved the community that
the stores seemed to foster around them. And while they
wanted waffle House to be fast they actually never wanted
it to be fast food, Hence you know those ceramic
plates and some of the other little family oriented touches.
But before we finish up, I I do want to
(21:55):
talk a little bit about race relations at waffle House
and how the company is historically positioned itself. But before
we get into that, let's take a quick break. Welcome
(22:16):
back to Part Time Genius, where we're talking all things
waffle House now, MAGA, before we get to the fun facts,
and I know you wanted to talk a little bit
about some of the issues waffle House has faced with,
you know, race or race relations over the years, and
also what their philosophy has been all along. Yeah, so
one of the things waffle House talks about a lot
is inclusion. The name of their in house magazine is inc,
(22:37):
which apparently stands for inclusion. And also there's weird things
in pop culture, like there's a John Mayer song where
the lyrics are, quote Martin Luther King had a dream
and I think waffle House was in it, which just
feels a little ridiculous to me. And anyway, the way
the company and others talk about the chain is almost
as a place that's kind of egalitarian but also consciously diverse.
(22:59):
Like the company's sponsored hip hop film festivals. Uh, they've
actually sponsored international volunteering programs, and they actually try to
celebrate the stories of all types of people who work
their way up in management at the company. There was
also this Daily Show segment. I don't know if you've
seen it, and this only like tangentially relates to waffle House,
but the Daily Show set this fake gay couple to
(23:20):
propose to one another in an Alabama and Mississippi waffle house,
you know, just to see the reactions, and in both
places people just kind of politely applauded and went on
with their business. Yeah, it was undercover, but you know,
it kind of seemed to show that everyone's welcome there.
But there's also been a disconcerting amount of discrimination lawsuits
over the years filed against the company, and and that
(23:42):
worried me. So I wanted to look into that, and
so what's the corporate response to that. Ben They've they've
kind of doubled down on the in house storytelling with
things like their Inclusion magazine, but they also talked about
it like it's a problem of growing too fast, too quickly,
and that it's a little hard to reinforce values across
news stores. But it did make me wonder about the
early days and whether waffle House had the sort of
(24:03):
sit ins and counter protests that you saw in other
places in the South, and did that you know, I
always think of Atlanta as you know, the city that's
too busy to hate, but but obviously that wasn't the
case everywhere in the city. Yeah. So the only account
I could find was in the Atlanta Daily World, which
had a segregation as bent, I guess, but their account
of the story, and this is in nineteen six four,
was that twelve protesters came in and they weren't served.
(24:26):
But instead of serving some people and not others, the
headwaiter just stopped service for everyone at the store and
until he got like a response from his manager, and
then an hour or so later, the management confirmed that
everyone should be served, regardless of race. And you know,
when the story was told years later, Joe Senior claimed
that he was personally involved in the decision and that
waffle House was always built as a place of integration.
(24:49):
I mean, I'm guessing there were plenty of waffle Houses
where people weren't treated fairly, but it is nice to
hear that those twelve protesters got served, and you know
that no one was served until a decision was made.
And I like thinking of waffles and its most ideal terms,
and I guess Anthony Bourdain came away thinking that way too,
So why don't we end this with a quote from
him about waffle House. Waffle House is indeed marvelous, an
(25:13):
irony free zone where everything is beautiful and nothing hurts,
where everybody, regardless of race, creed, color, or degree of inebriation,
is welcomed. It's warm yellow glow, a beacon of hope
and salvation, inviting the hungry, the loss, the seriously hammered
all across the south and side, a place of safety
and nourishment. It never closes. It is always, always faithful,
(25:36):
always there for you. I like that. So time for
the fact of time for the fact though, m did
you know that waffle House played a role in the
birth of Reddit. According to a co founder, Alex Shnian quote,
(25:56):
I walked out of an ls at prep course and
into a waffle House and real as I wanted to
not be a lawyer and that I had better come
up with something better. And to me read it definitely
feels like a more interesting path. Yeah, I'm super interesting path.
All right. So you remember how I told you about
waffle Houses record label at the top of the show.
So they don't just put out the six singles like
the ones I was telling you about. Waffle House Records
(26:17):
also occasionally puts out music videos. It wasn't this amazing.
It's first released in two thousand seven was just called
Bert and it was named for the chili. So did
you know that in the very early days waffle House
helped to launch Chick fil A Sandwiches. I mean, they're
both Atlanta brands, and waffle House got a license to seldom,
which made it more popular. Wow, I had never heard
(26:40):
that before. All right, well, here's a strange fact. The
two co founders of waffle House, Tom and Joe, they
died within one month of each other. Tom died at
the age of nineties seven, while Joe died at the
age of eight. That's amazing. I don't know why I
didn't know this earlier, But did you know that waffle
House cater's mules and if you have more than twenty
(27:00):
guests are planning to spend more than two dollars, they'll
offer a quote the same unique experiences in a restaurant.
They also have a food truck called the Waffle Truck
that looks like a restaurant on wheels. I don't know
how I didn't know this, but I do know that
I'm going to put in a request for this here
at one of the house. I feel like for all
the Southern companies we worked for, we should have had
like a catered meal from waffle I don't that's gonna
(27:22):
be interesting. I wonder how the catering works, like do
do waffles travel well? Waffle truck? Yeah? Well, apparently when
a man walked into a South Carolina Waffles at two
am and found the one employee asleep, he actually took
his meal into his own hands. He waited about ten
minutes and then he took selfies as he cooked a
double bacon cheese steak melt on the grill. I love
(27:44):
that he wouldn't just like make bacon and eggs like.
He went all out with this and then he cleaned
the grill. Later, the waff Fliles actually offered him a job.
I'm guessing that other guy probably didn't take his job well.
When a teenage waitress was photographed cutting up food for
an older patron and Lamarck, Texas, it went viral this
year and in her honor, the town's mayor declared March eighth, two,
(28:06):
eighteen nine Williams Day. And even better than that, Texas
Southern University actually offered her a scholarship for four thousand
dollars a semester, which is amazing, Right, that's a lot
of money. Well, what's amazing is that you read those
sorts of stories all over the place. In the Bonappetite story,
Andrew Knowlton talks about how easy it is to recognize
the waffle house lean, as he calls it, when patrons
(28:28):
are drunk and sleepy. And you know how you watched
a wonderful waitress put a cold towel on a patron's neck,
given this little shoulder massage and and revive him. But
but that's actually not my fact. That's just the sweet story.
So my last one is, did you know that every
year waffle house celebrates Valentine's Day? Didn't? They do it
up with table cloths and candles? And it apparently started
(28:49):
at a John's Creek waffle house close by here, but
now over a hundred and fifty different places celebrate. And
it isn't an easy reservation to get. You've actually got
to reserve well in advanced if you want to dine
cheap with your sweetie. So I think maybe we know
what we're doing with our wives next Valentine definitely, And
I love the idea of table cloths and candle lay
and a little no socks, no shirt, no knuckle heads
(29:12):
playing from that waffle house juke box, which is a
real song. But I think you have to take home
today's golden waffle Oh wow, I'm so honored. All right, Well,
thank you guys for listening today. If we forgot any
great facts about waffle house or waffles or grit I'm
just getting hungry thinking about this, we would love to
hear those from you. You can email us part Time
Genius at how stuff Works dot com or hit us
(29:33):
up on our seven fact hot line that's one eight
four four pt Genius, or obviously you can reach us
on Facebook or Twitter. Thanks so much for listening. Thanks
(29:55):
again for listening. Part Time Genius is a production of
How Stuff Works and wouldn't be possible without several brilliant
people who do the important things we couldn't even begin
to understand. Tristan McNeil does the editing thing. Noel Brown
made the theme song and does the MIXI mixy sound thing.
Jerry Rowland does the exact producer thing. Gave Bluesier is
our lead researcher, with support from the Research Army including
Austin Thompson, Nolan Brown and Lucas Adams and Eve Jeff
(30:18):
Cook gets the show to your ears. Good job, Eves.
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