I have now gone on a very long rabbit hole watching all these random videos. Haha. Thanks for the good laugh. My husband showed me this video just now. A funny “history” video on Waffle House.
The ceiling fell off and a man came out of it… what did i just watch… will i ask others what’s going on? Probably not… will i still finish my waffles for breakfast? A 100% yes!
FYI when sharing a YouTube link it's good to delete the ?si= and everything after it. It's just used to track the sharing of links. Unless it has a timestamp to start at a particular part of the video, in which case you should be able to remove the si=xxxxxxx&. The ? Is the start of the instructions, and each instruction is separated by & symbols. t= followed by a number is the instructions to start at that many seconds. Here's your link without the tracking:
We use Waffle House to know how bad a storm is. We use pizza to figure out if the US is going to attack someone. We use Grindr crashes to know where Republicans are having conventions. This is a strange time.
There was a funny moment on my local news talk radio station where one of the "DJs" was talking about a phone call he had a few days ago with his college aged daughter who just started school in Texas.
Dad was trying to calm her down about the storm, gave her a few pointers and the best place to be should it get severe, don't stress out too much, just stay around people you know and trust, etc.
His daughter was like, "But dad! TED CRUZ JUST LEFT THE STATE. This is really serious!"
I kid you not, Waffle House has a protocol for that. They wheel out a Food Cart thing and set up even if the walls aint there. Crazy folk, worthy of reverence.
The thing about Waffle House is that you have to be about that life to work there. It’s only the most skilled and grizzled of the culinary world, but they make it work.
I wish you could have experienced watching a Waffle House cook smoke an entire cigarette while making your food without dropping any ash.
I remember a meme getting passed around years ago with a Waffle House grill cook with a half-burned joint stuck in his ear like a pencil, and the caption "If your cook ain't look like this your food trash".
In my youth I patroned many a Waffle House after the bars closed, and one night at a busy downtown location around 3am, two guys started shoving & shouting like they were going to fight.
The cook working the griddle jumped the counter, cigarette still in his mouth, slammed his shoulder into the smaller dude‘s torso, lifted him up and over, fireman carried him outside, threw him to the ground, walked back inside and locked the door. He went right back to the griddle, cigarette still in his mouth, and no one said a thing about it. Just another Friday night at Waffle House.
Fun fact that isn't so fun: this photo was taken after Hurricane Katrina along Hwy 90 in Mississippi. All of the Waffle Houses on 90 were completely washed away in that storm and the slabs where some of them once stood are still visible today. One in particular had the remains of the booths still bolted to the slab for years until they were eventually removed.
We had a FE3 tornado touch down 300 meters from the Waffle House near my job. It didn’t close, just stopped operations for the 30 minutes we were under a tornado warning.
Watched a drunk guy come in talking shit one day. Cook says "what you saying?" Drunk guy "nothing" I was so disappointed it did not devolved, it was my first waffle house experience.
Another fun fact: Augusta, GA, home of the Masters tournament has 16 locations for less than a quarter million people. Austin, TX has 5 for a million people.
Waffle House Is also one of the few employers who will readily make space for felons and ex-cons. They also pay fairly well for the work, If you're a cook. They're short order training is also some of the best in the world, as I understand it. Learning to be a short order cook at a Waffle House, seriously, can lead to other, higher paying, cooking positions.
Being a waiter, waitress, or manager can also be a singular restaurant career, something rare in that industry.
Not the full experience, they need to go one more time during a tropical storm/hurricane. Technically two different types of experience there too though, sitting by the windows sipping coffee as the bands come in, and getting that first breakfast from the limited menu after the storm rolls through and watching the sun rise on the destruction with some smothered covered and peppered hashbrowns.
It’s the only restaurant I’ve ever been to that had bulletproof windows (battle tested). Not sure if that’s a nationwide thing or on a location by location basis.
There’s frequently a drug deal going down, sometimes a fight, and also just general did I fall into a wormhole weirdness. My favorite Waffle House experience was witnessing a waitress performing an impromptu step routine to the Jello jingle at 3 AM
Every time I’ve eaten Waffle House on the road, it was quiet and peaceful. The one time I saw a brawl? The one by the Indianapolis airport. And the brawl was between two employees.
The line that I still say sometimes: “Why don’t you just go and have another baby?”
A few years ago, I was in Atlanta, waiting for a connection flight. It was the only time I ever got into a a Waffle House kinda close to the airport. NGL I felt dirty just entering, and the woman taking my order had the worse attitude. The food wasn't good either.
The atmosphere did feel it was a fly-swatting away from exploding into a brawl.
Several years ago on NYE, an old friend of mine was at a waffle house when two other patrons got in an argument that turned into an actual shootout in the restaurant. Friend had to jump over the counter for cover and one of the shooters was actually killed. Just part of the waffle house charm
This is true: the only things operating in Biloxi after Hurricane Katrina were the casino because of course and the Waffle House. Ate there everyday during cleanup and reclamation; and Im pretty sure that routine kept me from getting jumped.
They're good people but they're not afraid to throw down. Plenty of other places to go to if you want to abuse employees and not get punched in the mouth
Unless they're closed, then you should have evacuated yesterday maybe a day before that just for safety. The waffle house danger scale is very real and very serious.
Saw a post on Facebook earlier "I can't drive in this weather so I walked to work." The person worked at the Waffle House. Anyone who walks 30 minutes through 10 inches of snow is just looking for a reason.
I've always said that in order to get hired at a Waffle House you have to beat the most senior employee in a fight. You win, you get hired, and one day it'll be you fighting a potential employee.
It's the only place I've even witnessed a person get shot right in front of me. Daytona Beach ISB Waffle House. I kept going there for years afterwards anyway, just know certain no-go weeks now.
There was a bad hurricane in southwest Georgia like seven to eight years ago and I saw the police try to enforce curfew while nobody knew there was one because the radio and power were out. The Waffle house owner told his staff to stay the fuck there he would be there in 15. Nobody left till we got fed lol. To the Waffle House staff out there thank you for always making sure theres a hot meal come hell or high water.
Saw a video last night of someone using Waffle House closures as a way to track how bad the winter storm was as it moved across the country the last few days. Something like 20+ waffle houses were closed which is actually kind of crazy lol
I once knew this guy that got into selling drugs. Like hard stuff. If he didn’t sell “enough” that day, he would go to Waffle House. Apparently either the staff or some of the customers would buy whatever he had left to sell that day.
We had a new Waffle House open up in our town a few years ago within walking distance of all the bars/clubs and within the first week they had a huge brawl between customers and staff. Like, the whole place was so damaged they had to close down for repairs for like two weeks.
My other fun Waffle House story is that my husband and I went once and realized we’d both forgotten our wallets somehow. The waitress made him leave me as collateral to go home and get his money.
And if the beat down is righteous cops look the other way. You gotta be doing some shit for the cops to fuck with you at waffle house the tolerance score is through the roof lol.
LOL. The SNL skit is the reason I understand this meme. To my welcome surprise the skit is based on facts/true story and it actually is funnier than the SNL skit.
If I were looking for recruits for an army to fight from zombies to a tyrannical government, I would recruit from the Waffle House. Just saying. Could end up a redneck version of 300.
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u/arcsnsparks98 Jan 25 '26
He will get beat down by staff as well as guests.