Alone in a Waffle House

In which I make the argument that WaHo encapsulates everything good about the United States of America.

When I walk into the Waffle House, my first ever visit, one of its employees is talking about she’d feel like a child molester dating one of the new hires because he’s the same age as her brother. She doesn’t stop on my account.

In fact, the group barely acknowledges me at all.

I feel like I’ve stepped into season 3 of a TV show but, before I can get myself caught up, the conversation shifts to a new type of chocolate bar that just came in at the Walmart. A few minutes later, I’m sat in a booth. I’m the only customer.

Waxing lyrical about Waffle House is well-worn territory. Bourdain did it. Stephen Colbert did it. Hell, even fast food podcasters like the Doughboys have done it. But if you’ll stick with me, I think I have something to add on why this place might just live forever.

Maybe the closest thing to a British equivalent of Waffle House is the defunct chain Little Chef. Where, prior to its closing, food was served with a smile...and occasionally a lit cigarette hanging from it.

Serving up fare inspired by American diners, the company went bankrupt in 2018 just after celebrating its 60th anniversary. They’re almost all Burger Kings now.

But there’s a key difference between Little Chef and Waffle House – LC was usually regarded as a last resort, while the food at Waffle House is legitimately good. Isn’t it? Maybe I’d just been dining on too many dry hotel waffles, but I thought this place was dynamite.

My waffle, for which this house is named, is moist, fluffy, as close to the platonic ideal of a waffle as I’ve ever encountered. Smothering it with butter and syrup seems excessive, but you do it anyway.

A few bites in, I turn my attention to the hash browns on the other plate before me. Smothered, covered, smeared, smushed. Something like that anyway.

The jalapenos, pickled to mushy perfection, serve as exclamation marks to the savoury potatoes and salty ham. A slice of American cheese, disgusting in theory, ties the whole thing together.

Switching between my waffle and hash browns, I become legitimately angry at myself when I neglect the other for too long. I feel like a dog with two tennis balls.

I’m confident that the only thing that could make this food taste even better is a hangover.  I consider going somewhere to get hammered and coming back 12 hours later, but I still have 180 miles to cover to get to the next non-refundable hotel on my trip. So I settle up instead.

The food is, objectively speaking, too cheap. I tip around 25% (easy there, Rockefeller), but the low price of the meal means this still only comes out at a few bucks. My server barely reacts when I drop it in the tip jar.

I would expect, and want, nothing else.

It isn’t hyperbolic to say that Waffle House represents the best of America.

The food is inexpensive, hearty and, if not nutritious, at least delicious. And the staff members, around 50% Black and 50% white in this particular location, worked in perfect harmony as the place filled up. Like a well-oiled machine.

[Though maybe it’s worth pointing out that racial harmony hasn’t, according to some commentators, always been Waffle House’s strong suit.]

My overall experience here was efficient and functional, devoid of the frothy (and sometimes, for a Brit at least, exhausting) “welcome in”s and “have an awesome day”s that bookend so many encounters in the US.

Waffle House gets shit done, and it gets it done well, without any airs or pretension. It knows what it is, unlike IHOP (/IHOB *eye roll*) or Denny’s with their menu revisions and movie tie-ins, and makes no apologies for it.

And though that often includes the lingering possibility of violence – one employee has an explosive argument with someone on the phone during her break and screeches away in her car – that’s America too.

I stop in the bathroom on the way out to clean up and, although I’ve never been to prison, it looks like what I assume a prison bathroom looks like. The hand dryer pictured above was first introduced in 1986. It still does the job just fine.

I thank the team as I leave through the rickety front door and, while someone coughs up a lung post-smoke break, I think maybe one of the cooks gives me an almost imperceptible nod. It might just have been a twitch.

Then again, I wouldn’t want it any other way.