…….I rarely patronize a franchised establishment when I can avoid it. I try to find the “Ma & Pa” places to do my business. Wherever you go these days, every town feels the same as the last one. The same businesses, the same restaurants turning this whole damn country this big fucking homogenized… STERILE place.
…….But there are a few exceptions that I’ll make, and when I’m on the road, Waffle House is one of them. Yes, yes, I know there’s like a million of them scattered about our great land, but one thing about this venerable establishment: there’s nothing STERILE about a Waffle House.
…….Firstly, if you have a morbid curiosity to view the very dregs of mankind, this is the place for you. Allot of people talk about the freak show over at IHOP… well, let me tell you brother: the IHOP weirdos can’t hold a candle to the nut-jobs encountered at Waffle House. On Sunday mornings you’ll find the church crowd in an IHOP. Sunday morning at the Waffle House finds it populated with alcoholic traveling salesmen who just blew their last sale, somber truckers crying into there coffee, and a spectrum of washouts that you’d swear were just released from prison, or turned out from the methadone clinic that day.
…….I had a waitress once, who had prison tattoos all over her arms. She was smoking a cigarette while she took my order (and another, while she prepared it) and her name tag clearly read “Granny”. Have I got your attention now?
…….Once while dining with friends at a Waffle House on a Wednesday night, I looked up from our conversation, and discovered we were the only people in the restaurant. There were no other customers, and the three women working when we arrived momentarily vanished. Try to imagine that. It makes one immediately suspect zombies (or worse yet CHUDS) just outside the window glass. Apparently they all went on break at the same time. Presumably after looking at my group and judging that we weren’t menacing enough to require supervision. Who would rob a Waffle House anyway?
…….Ironically, the service and the food is top-notch. At certain hours of the day, your waitress may also be the one cooking your meal, and they want that tip. They’ll call you “cutie” or “hon” or “sweethart” and, to be frank, those words make me blush regardless of Granny’s shade of blue hair.
- Not on the menu? No worry, most Waffle Houses will fix you ANYTHING you ask for.
- Had to wait along time to get a your order taken? Hey, sorry about that, heres a free bowl of Bert’s Chilli.
- Would you like a slice of pie? Its on the house.
…….Every Waffle House has a jukebox, and along with a few pop standards those jukeboxes all come loaded with a selection of Waffle House specific music. Including such timeless favorites as “Waffle Do Wop” and “There are Raisins in my Toast”. Honest to God!
…….Interestingly, Waffle House doesn’t try to downplay their inherent weirdness, if anything they embrace it. Every restaurant feels strangely misplaced in time. The genuine hospitality, the colorful menus filled with fun-facts, the option of getting cherry or vanilla syrup in your Coke. These are things we’ve come to not expect anymore and they add a bit of gonzo nostalgia. Waffle House, I salute you.
SARACANITE 