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| Waffle House | |
| Company type | Private |
| Industry | Restaurants |
| Genre | Casual dining |
| Founded | September 5, 1955; 69 years ago (1955-09-05) Avondale Estates, Georgia, United States |
| Founders | Joe Rogers Tom Forkner |
| Headquarters | 5986 Financial Drive,, United States |
Number of locations | 2,006[1][2] (November 2024) |
Area served | 25 U.S. states |
| Products | Waffles, breakfast food, sandwiches |
| Revenue |  $1 billion[3] |
Number of employees | 40,000[2] |
| Subsidiaries | WH Capital, L.L.C. |
| Website | wafflehouse |
Waffle House, Inc. is an Americanrestaurant chain with over 2000 locations in 25 states in the United States.[4] The bulk of the locations are in theMidwest and theSouth, where the chain is a regional cultural icon.[5] The menu consists mainly ofSouthernbreakfast food.[6] Waffle House is headquartered inNorcross, Georgia, in theAtlanta metropolitan area.[7]
The first Waffle House opened onLabor Day weekend in 1955 at 2719 East College Avenue inAvondale Estates, Georgia.[8][9] That restaurant was conceived and founded byJoe Rogers Sr. andTom Forkner.[10][9][11] Rogers started in the restaurant business as a short-order cook in 1947 at theToddle House inNew Haven, Connecticut.[12] By 1949, he had become a regional manager[5] with the now-defunctMemphis-based Toddle House chain. He then moved toAtlanta, where he met Tom Forkner while buying a house from him in Avondale Estates.[4]
Rogers's concept was to combine the speed of fast food with table service with around-the-clock availability.[5] Forkner suggested naming the restaurant "Waffle House", aswaffles were the most profitable item on the 16-item menu.[5] Rogers continued to work with Toddle House, and, to avoid conflict of interest, sold his interest to Forkner in 1956.
In 1960, Rogers asked to buy into Toddle House, and was subsequently refused. Afterwards, he moved back to Atlanta and rejoined Waffle House, now a chain of three restaurants, to run restaurant operations.[12] Shortly after Rogers returned full-time, Forkner followed suit and left Ben S. Forkner Realty.
After opening a fourth restaurant in 1960, the company beganfranchising its restaurants and slowly grew to 27 stores by the late 1960s, before growth accelerated.
In 2007, Waffle House repurchased the original restaurant, which had been sold by the chain in the early 1970s. The company restored it using original blueprints for use as a private company museum. The museum is used primarily for internal corporate events and tours.[13][14]
In 2008, one of the biggest Waffle House franchises in the southeast, North Lake Foods, was bought out by Waffle House, Inc. North Lake Foods filed forChapter 11 bankruptcy protection and closed some stores. Waffle House, Inc. plans to rehabilitate the franchise.[citation needed] In early 2009, East Coast Waffles bought North Lake Foods to become a new franchise.[15]
The founders of the Waffle House brand died in 2017 within two months of each other: Joe Rogers Sr. died on March 3 and Tom Forkner on April 26.[16] On September 8, 2024, it was reported thatWalter G. Ehmer, who oversaw Waffle House since 2012, had died.[17]
Each Waffle House location is open 24 hours daily.[18] This schedule has inspired the urban myth that "Waffle House doors have no locks".[19]The chain's restaurants almost always havejukeboxes, which have traditionally played45-rpm singles[20] and, in some cases, CDs. Waffle House has released music through its own record label, Waffle Records. It has released songs from "Saturday Night At My Place" byGary Garcia released in 1995 to "They're Cooking Up My Order" byAlfreda Gerald released in 2006. The co-founderJoe Rogers had high standards and said, "If it sounded like a commercial, it got the ax." If the song makes the cut, it will be recorded and make its way to Waffle House jukeboxes.[21] The songs are on ordinary discs, which are produced for Waffle House and are not commercially sold, but the chain has made a CD of some of the songs available for sale.[22] Other artists that recorded for Waffle Records includeEddie Middleton who recorded "Good Food Fast" and "Waffle Doo-Wop," which was composed and produced byJerry Buckner.[23][24]
The company claims to be the world's leading seller of several of its menu items—the namesake waffles, ham, pork chops, grits, and T-bone steaks. It also claims that it serves 2% of all eggs in the U.S.[25]
In the 1960s,S. Truett Cathy, the owner of a local diner called the Dwarf House, contracted with Waffle House to sell his proprietarychicken sandwich, the Chick-fil-A chicken sandwich. However, the Chick-fil-A sandwich quickly overtook Waffle House's own items in sales and Waffle House ended the deal, prompting Cathy to spin offChick-fil-A into its own chain.[26]
For years, Waffle House was known as "Waffle and Steak" in Indiana due to another chain of restaurants owning the rights to the Waffle House name in the state.[27][28] The original Indiana Waffle House chain has started using the name "Sunshine Cafe".[29] However, thed/b/a for "Sunshine Cafe" belongs to "Waffle House Greenwood Inc.", established in 1981. The oldest "Waffle House" entity listed with the Corporations office of the Indiana Secretary of State is "Waffle House ofBloomington, Indiana, Inc." established in 1967, and, like Waffle House Greenwood, it is still an active corporation.[30] The Bloomington operation, the city's second oldest restaurant, closed in 2013, and was demolished to make way for an apartment complex.[31] (Many of the Waffle House corporations in Indiana have been dissolved.) "Waffle House Inc." of Norcross, Georgia, registered with Indiana in 1974. In 2005, the Waffle and Steak restaurants all adopted the "Waffle House" moniker, bringing the entire chain under the name.[30]
In 2004, in response to a seriousSalmonella problem in 2003 at aChili's location inVernon Hills, Illinois,[32]and by four deaths in 1993 fromE. coli in undercookedhamburger at aJack in the Box,[33] the television news magazineDateline NBC investigated sanitation practices of popular American family restaurant chains, measuring the number of critical violations per inspection. The Waffle House averaged 1.6 critical violations per inspection.[34] Waffle House's response to the study pointed out that they prepare all meals in an open kitchen, and consumers can readily observe their sanitation practices themselves.[35]
On September 17, 2019, customers who ate at a Waffle House inGoose Creek, South Carolina, were exposed toHepatitis A. One of the employees who had worked there tested positive for Hepatitis A. After upper management found out, they immediately shut down the Goose Creek Waffle House location tosanitize the facility.DHEC officials said they would be working with Waffle House to investigate possible exposures and provide guidance for preventive treatment for anyone who may be affected.[36]
Waffle House has developed into a cultural icon. Part of Waffle House's fame is that they are prominent alongInterstate highways in the South.[37]
A now defunctGeocities website, The Waffle House Shrine, hosted employee and customer comments about their experiences with Waffle House.[38][39][37]
Waffle House has become known as aninternet meme forviral videos of fights on its premises,[40][41][42] which have been attributed to the combination of being open 24/7 and its customers often being under the influence of alcohol, though this reputation has been described as aself-fufilling prophecy with similar violence regularly taking place in other retail outlets.[41]
According to theFederal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), Waffle House is one of the top four corporations, along withWalmart,The Home Depot, andLowe's, for disaster response.[43][44] Waffle House has an extensive disaster management plan with on-site and portable generators, and positions food and ice ahead of severe weather events such as ahurricane. This helps mitigate the effects of a storm on the power grid and the supply chains.[45] The company prepares "jump teams" of recovery staff and supplies, brought in from outside disaster-affected areas, so that local staff can focus on helping their own homes and families. The ability of a Waffle House to remain open after a severe storm, possibly with a limited menu, is used by FEMA as a measure of disaster recovery known as theWaffle House Index.[43][46][47]
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