Waffle House

Photo credit: DekalbHistory.com

I hesitate to take up my pen to write about a regional chain of 24-hour anytime breakfast diners. My concern is that I’m not sure I can improve on the voluminous offerings of better writers like Sean Dietrich. He’s written so much about Waffle House that I wonder if he secretly moonlights as a line cook at their Chilton County location off I-65.

I suppose writing about Waffle House is like writing love letters to your wife of 50 years. Sure, it’s all probably been said before, but she still appreciates it. So here goes.

We all have our collection of core memories, and many of mine take place at breakfast eateries. There was Chism’s Truck Stop in Ozark, which was a greasy spoon so stereotypical that the owners ultimately bulldozed it— probably in response to the threat of a forensic audit by the Health Department.

I recall the asbestos ceiling tiles were stained yellow by decades of cheap tobacco smoke. No matter what you ordered, it tasted like lard. I favored Chism’s pancakes with a side of margarine and cigarette ashes (no charge). The coffee was burned, and if you ordered orange juice it was the kind that came from those old frozen cylinders of concentrate you’d have to stir for hours in water. If you were lucky, you’d get a block of undissolved orange goop in your glass, which was super sweet.

Chism’s was the the mid-way point of the Saturday morning motorcycle ride Daddy (pronounced “dead-ee”) would take me on. He had a 1980 Kawasaki 1000cc something or other. Back in his late 20s, he had a bad accident where he woke up under a car that had pulled in front of him. He declared that he would never ride another motorcycle unless he lived to be 40. The day he turned 40, he drove out to the Lemon Lot at Ft. Rucker and bought his bike.

Other core memories include early morning breakfasts in the Florida Panhandle when Daddy took me and brother Jon fishing with him and his two angler buddies, Drs. Oliver and Patterson. Most of these diners were Waffle House off-brands. They had names like “Waffle King” or “Pancake House,” but they all still shared an affinity for earth tone diner decor and smoke-stained asbestos ceiling tiles.

I carried my love of Waffle House into young adulthood. Whatever I did for a living back then (I never could quite describe it for people when they’d ask), I remember it involved a lot of driving at night. And, of course, along a dark Southern highway, the only thing open at 1am is the Waffle House. I tell foreigners that if they really want to understand American exceptionalism, they shouldn’t listen to politicians, preachers, or bloviating talking heads on cable news shows. They should go to Waffle House at 1am.

The best of America is found at Waffle House after midnight. And I’m not talking about drunks and giggly teenagers out too late, because they’re a crap shoot as far as counter companions go. I’m speaking of the staff. Waffle House somehow manages to find the best examples of humanity and employ them at ungodly hours. And they do this consistently wherever they operate.

The line cooks are mostly male, in my experience. And they’re often skinny, pasty white in complexion, tattooed to excess, and on probation. They’re also machines on that kitchen line. They’re fast, precise, and only take a break to grab a quick drag from their vape thingy (their only flaw).

The “servers” are not servers. They’re waitresses. There, I said it. Sue me. These women are typically middle-aged, divorced, or single mothers, sometimes tattooed to excess, and the toughest, loveliest examples of feminine Teflon alive. They call you “Sweetie,” “Baby,” or “Darlin’” — and they mean it. They’re good for conversation, always cheerful, and positive to a fault. It’s incredible. Life has most likely hit all these women over the head with a 2x4, but they’re still standing strong. They’ve been unlucky with men, probably are grandparents too early, and drive around in used cars bought from those scoundrels at “Kredit Kingdom Auto”— and filled with Beanie Babies and at least two carseats. Most probably vape.

Beautiful, wonderful women. And, for a few minutes, they treat you like their favorite son, even if you smell like a pack of Marlboros and cans of Old English.

“‘Merica!”

I recall picking up a young man named Dirk from South Africa visiting the States for the very first time. He was attending a Scouting Jamboree and was excited to visit this amazing country everyone talks about. He landed in Atlanta, and I drove him straight to the nearest Waffle House.

After a 40-hour long-haul flight, Dirk ordered everything on the menu and bottomless coffee. He left the restaurant sporting a wife-beater, a full beard, and a round of Skoal in his back pocket. Well, not exactly, but you get the point. He would have gladly joined Andy Jackson at New Orleans on the ramparts.

These days I do less driving in the evenings, and Waffle House is the designated breakfast date destination for my kids. Considering we own and operate a breakfast and brunch restaurant shows you how dedicated I am to nostalgia.

Our local Waffle House is like all the others. The senior waitress is a Hispanic lady named “Rocky” but her real name is probably something like Roquelle María de los Ángeles Guadalupe Fernández y Castillo. I like Rocky. She’s happy, hard-working, loyal, and never lets my coffee mug remain empty for more than 2.5 seconds.

But the nicest thing about Rocky is that I don’t just see her at Waffle House. We also sit together at church. Most of my life was spent going to churches with zero Waffle House employees. That should have been by first warning (just kidding). But when I became a Papist, all of a sudden I was surrounded by them.

I’ll never forget waiting in the confession line and Rocky walking in wearing her Waffle House uniform. She had just gotten off shift, and there she was, sitting next to me, waiting to go in and unload on our poor priest. What a Waffle House employee needs to confess, I’ll never know— especially one like Rocky.

And as I sat there with Rocky in the quiet of our little 1980s “Pizza Hut church,” complete with pink carpet, I suddenly realized why I have always been so drawn to Waffle House. It’s because it’s like church— or in my case growing up, what church should have been.

After her family converted to Rome, English novelist Nancy Mitford supposedly quipped “but now we shall have to go to church with the help.” The luxury of choice in the West (especially America) often means that “church” resembles a private social club of people that typically look like each other and think like each other. When things start to get a little too edgy, we split and start new churches with others like us precisely so we don’t have to spiritually cavort with “the help.”

Waffle House is a lot like the way church should be. Everyone is there. Rich, poor, married, single, white, black, drunks, tea-totalers, Democrats, Republicans, lawyers, litigants, true believers, and pretenders. And, like Holy Mass, they’re all there for the same thing. It’s not the decor (which is often bland and utilitarian). It’s not that it’s always open (although that’s very convenient). It’s not the charismatic preacher (nobody preaches at you in a Waffle House).

We go to be fed and seen. Waffle House feeds our bodies and souls. We are fed physically, but our souls are fed by being truly seen by those serving us. And there are no favorites at Waffle House. You may have just had the worst day of your life. You may have reached the bottom of the barrel and picked it up to see what was underneath. But at Waffle House, you’re always welcome, you’re always seen, and you’ll always eat.

If only all of our churches were more like Waffle House….