Speaker 1: Guess what Mango? What's that will? So I know, we
Speaker 1: were looking at the list of all the celebrities and
Speaker 1: musicians especially that love going to waffle House, and the
Speaker 1: list just cracks me up. Like Kim and Kanye supposedly
Speaker 1: double date there. Donnie Wahlberg, who yes, I consider a musician.
Speaker 1: He also gives these insane tips there. Apparently Kid Rock
Speaker 1: chooses to get in brawls there, which is really not
Speaker 1: that surprising. But for all the musicians who eat there,
Speaker 1: did you realize that waffle House actually has its own
Speaker 1: music label. You can play the songs on their juke
Speaker 1: boxes right there. You know. As much as I've been
Speaker 1: in waffle House, like, I can't say I've ever actually
Speaker 1: paid attention to the music really, and I probably hadn't
Speaker 1: either until I was there with my son and he
Speaker 1: started singing a Garth Brooks song along with the jukebox.
Speaker 1: I was like, how did you know this song? Anyway? So, actually,
Speaker 1: some of the great ones that are on the list
Speaker 1: of songs that are part of their label. There's uh,
Speaker 1: there are Raisins in My Toast by Danny Jones. You
Speaker 1: really want to check this one out, or they're cooking
Speaker 1: up My Order Boy by ALFREDA. Gerald. I guess well,
Speaker 1: apparently that's by design, and according to waffle House, they
Speaker 1: want the music to set the mood, like, not be
Speaker 1: an advertisement that just droned waffle House, waffle House, waffle House.
Speaker 1: You know, they actually set this high standard and if
Speaker 1: it sounds too much like a jingle, they refused to
Speaker 1: put it on waffle House records. I just love saying
Speaker 1: waffle House records. But that's just the first of a
Speaker 1: heaping pile of waffle House facts we're about to dive into.
Speaker 1: So let's dig in y day their podcast listeners, Welcome
Speaker 1: to Part Time Genius. I'm Will Pearson and as always
Speaker 1: I'm joined by my good friend Man Guesh Ticketer and
Speaker 1: sitting behind that soundproof glass wearing a shirt that says
Speaker 1: Toast of the town. It's just got a big old
Speaker 1: piece of French toast at the top of it. That's
Speaker 1: our pal and produce, Sir Tristan McNeil. You know, he
Speaker 1: is the toast of the toast of the town. But
Speaker 1: I'm kind of surprised he didn't pick like a more
Speaker 1: waffle House centric shirt, like one that said, uh, I
Speaker 1: don't know, like scattered, smothered or covered or our house
Speaker 1: is a very very fine waffle house. And I mean
Speaker 1: waffle house doesn't even serve French toast. It's true, And
Speaker 1: that's maybe the most critical I've ever heard of you
Speaker 1: being one of Tristan's shirts or props. But anyway, that
Speaker 1: they mostly don't serve French toast, and they also don't
Speaker 1: serve pancakes. So that's actually something I've always wondered about,
Speaker 1: Like waffle seems so much harder to make than pancakes,
Speaker 1: at least for me. You know, I've read that the
Speaker 1: thing with pancakes is that, unlike waffles, they're really hard
Speaker 1: to standardize on the grill. Like, you know, there's no
Speaker 1: pancake maker. You can just put the batter in. But
Speaker 1: if you're at waffle house and no one's around, or
Speaker 1: if they're just not that busy, you can actually convince
Speaker 1: the grill operators to make these special items for you. What,
Speaker 1: how do I not know that? Like I've been to
Speaker 1: a waffle house a million times. It's a secret. You
Speaker 1: just moved to the South about a year ago, and
Speaker 1: so I don't know if you're quite ready for it.
Speaker 1: But but now you try yeah, you just have to
Speaker 1: be bold enough to ask really, Like, but you know,
Speaker 1: waffles actually lets their chefs experiment, so things like Alice's
Speaker 1: iced tea that was actually perfected by someone name Alice,
Speaker 1: and there's an actual bird behind Bird's Chili. In fact,
Speaker 1: our researcher Christopher was telling me that he knows two
Speaker 1: chefs who've made their own specials. One was this hash
Speaker 1: brown dish with jalapenos and grilled chicken and ranch dressing,
Speaker 1: just cooked in a heap, and it's called Melvin Special.
Speaker 1: And another one's called Hanks Burger and it was just
Speaker 1: this special burger made with a regular patty and it
Speaker 1: was mixed in with breakfast sausage. And neither of them
Speaker 1: got enough support to be on the national menu. But like,
Speaker 1: if you ask nicely, the grill operators might do things
Speaker 1: like that, you know, like make you a burger with
Speaker 1: waffles for a bun, which actually sounds pretty good to
Speaker 1: be honest. Anyway, back to what you were saying earlier,
Speaker 1: like they may even throw some waffle batter on the
Speaker 1: grill and make you some pancakes. And is that any good?
Speaker 1: Apparently no, it's lousy, but they will do it. And
Speaker 1: that's just the kind of place waffle houses. So I
Speaker 1: was looking on an urban dictionary this week, just trying
Speaker 1: to find out if there are any terms related to
Speaker 1: waffle house, and actually there are a lot that are
Speaker 1: not for sensitive ears, But one definition I liked was
Speaker 1: waffle house and waffle house and so, so, what what
Speaker 1: does that mean? It's like when someone uses too many
Speaker 1: huns and sweeties in their language and too many terms
Speaker 1: of endument. So in a sense, you might say, like,
Speaker 1: she's a nice person, but she does too much waffle houses.
Speaker 1: That's kind of perfect actually, actually so in the weirder
Speaker 1: parts of my research this week, this other story kept
Speaker 1: coming up that I can't get out of my head,
Speaker 1: and it's about this drunk couple. Apparently, like it was
Speaker 1: pretty late and they were intoxicated, and you know, they
Speaker 1: had eaten their meal, and they thought they were being discreet,
Speaker 1: so they decided to go out back and mess around
Speaker 1: in their pickup truck. But someone saw it and complained,
Speaker 1: And when the cops came by and told them they
Speaker 1: had to get out of the truck, the woman kept
Speaker 1: trying to put on her shoes, like she just kept
Speaker 1: trying to put her sandal on over and over, but
Speaker 1: she was so drunk that she just kept sliding her
Speaker 1: foot into a cheeseburger. It's crazy and disgusting. I know,
Speaker 1: I don't know why it's so funny, but like, every
Speaker 1: time I see a loose cheeseburger, from now on, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna want to put my foot in a loose cheeseburger.
Speaker 1: I told you this story, but you know, there are
Speaker 1: occasional moments where we realize, like, yep, we're from Alabama.
Speaker 1: And one of them was at a recent family gathering
Speaker 1: over the holidays, and my cousin comes in the door
Speaker 1: and he just starts out by saying, uh, you won't
Speaker 1: believe this, but Tracy's car caught fire at the waffle house,
Speaker 1: and we thought, all right, I think that's the most
Speaker 1: Alabama thing I ever said. Anyway, But if you're open
Speaker 1: all day, every day, and you're serving reliably cheap food,
Speaker 1: you're going to attract all sorts of clients. I mean,
Speaker 1: a second waffle only cost nine cents more, and a
Speaker 1: grilled cheese is under two dollars. But you know, before
Speaker 1: we start, I did want to make clear that both
Speaker 1: you and I love waffle house like this isn't. In
Speaker 1: some ironic way, we both just like waffle House. I know,
Speaker 1: it almost feels like it's a write of passage here
Speaker 1: in the South, and to me, it's almost like a
Speaker 1: real slice of America, the same way that greyhound busses
Speaker 1: are or used to be, Like, waffle houses feel like
Speaker 1: they should be in a Paul Simon song to me.
Speaker 1: But obviously I fell in love with waffle houses in
Speaker 1: college in North Carolina because they were accessible and also
Speaker 1: really easy on the wallet. But do you remember the
Speaker 1: first time I came to Birmingham and you drove me
Speaker 1: past the place where there were two waffle houses across
Speaker 1: the road from one another. Do I remember this? This
Speaker 1: was like the first stop on the tour. I mean,
Speaker 1: this is this is a special moment. Yeah for me too.
Speaker 1: But so we're obviously both big fans and familiar with
Speaker 1: the house. But one of the things I saw this
Speaker 1: week that was really fun to watch was Anthony Bourdain
Speaker 1: going to a waffle house for the first time late
Speaker 1: at night, and he's with that other famous chef, Sean Brock.
Speaker 1: It was for his show Parts Unknown, And I don't know,
Speaker 1: have you actually seen this episode. I haven't, but I
Speaker 1: want to know. Yeah, it's great because Bourdaine's clearly never
Speaker 1: been there, and and Brox the Southerner, and he just
Speaker 1: loves the place, so he's basically they're like drunkenly evangelizing
Speaker 1: of and trying to convert bourd into like loving waffle house.
Speaker 1: And so he introduces him by building this waffle house
Speaker 1: tasting menu. Apparently he does this for all his friends
Speaker 1: the first time he takes him there. And so they
Speaker 1: start with this pecan waffle, which of course is like
Speaker 1: smothered in butter and syrup, and then they moved to
Speaker 1: um a patty melt course, and then they have a
Speaker 1: light salad with Thousand Island dressing, and then at some
Speaker 1: point there's like a jump cut and they've been served
Speaker 1: eggs and hash browns and and then they finished with
Speaker 1: a t bone and pork chops like, all of which
Speaker 1: they slather in sauce. Wow, that is a lot of
Speaker 1: waffle house. I mean, it is definitely a recipe for
Speaker 1: preventing a hangover. And Bourdaine's description of the place is great,
Speaker 1: like he talks about it as the meal he wants
Speaker 1: more than French laundry, which is that super high end
Speaker 1: Thomas Keller Restaurants. I think part of the joy for
Speaker 1: me and watching that clip wasn't just watching these two
Speaker 1: people with really refined palets just devouring this food, but also,
Speaker 1: like Sean Brock claims that this is where you first
Speaker 1: watched people cook because the grill is really front center
Speaker 1: at waffle House, right, Like obviously these places all have
Speaker 1: the same footprint, but he gets really emotional about it,
Speaker 1: and he he asked, like, where else can a kid
Speaker 1: like him like get to watch this kind of service
Speaker 1: and see all these mysteries of cooking revealed so openly.
Speaker 1: You know, it's fun to think that waffle House inspired
Speaker 1: a kid to grow up into one of the country's
Speaker 1: best chefs. But now I do want to talk a
Speaker 1: little bit about the restaurants elaborate system for plating foods,
Speaker 1: and you know why chefs who train at waffle House
Speaker 1: are so respected. But before we get into that, why
Speaker 1: don't we start with a little waffle House background. I
Speaker 1: know you had so much fun with this, you did
Speaker 1: all the research on the history, said you want to
Speaker 1: give us a little primer. Sure, So waffle House is
Speaker 1: huge name, right, It's the number two family style restaurant chain,
Speaker 1: which I guess really means diner, Like it's right behind
Speaker 1: Denny's but ahead of High Hop on this list. And yeah,
Speaker 1: and in terms of numbers, they're about waffle houses in
Speaker 1: over two dozen states. This is primarily in the South,
Speaker 1: and of course they do crazy business, So Christopher pull
Speaker 1: these numbers for me. But the volume of food they
Speaker 1: serve is insane. They serve over three hundred strips of
Speaker 1: bacon and a hundred twenty five cups of coffee every
Speaker 1: single minute. And get this, if you stacked up all
Speaker 1: the sausage patties they serve in a single day, it'd
Speaker 1: be taller than the Birch Khalifa building, which is itself
Speaker 1: four times the height of the Empire. State Builders should
Speaker 1: totally do this. They need to stack them up. Plus
Speaker 1: they do about three hundred thousand waffles every day. But
Speaker 1: the reason the place is called waffle house is pretty amazing.
Speaker 1: You know, I've actually read about this, and isn't it.
Speaker 1: It's because the waffles are the most profitable item they sell, right,
Speaker 1: like they're at the most expensive item on the menu,
Speaker 1: but they have the highest profit margin. Yeah, so apparently
Speaker 1: the co founders wanted to encourage their customers to buy
Speaker 1: more waffles by putting it right in the name, which
Speaker 1: is super smart. I mean the other thing about the
Speaker 1: co founders. They're named Joe Roger Sr. And Tom Forulkner,
Speaker 1: but they were actually neighbors in Avondale Estates right here
Speaker 1: in Georgia, and Mom was in real estate. But Joe
Speaker 1: was working for a restaurant chain called Toddle House. I
Speaker 1: had never actually heard of Toddle House, but I guess
Speaker 1: they were really popular at one point and served an
Speaker 1: incredible banana pudding. Anyway, he was pretty high up, but
Speaker 1: Toddle House didn't allow employees to own restaurants, so the
Speaker 1: neighbors decided they liked the idea of starting something they
Speaker 1: could actually own, which they did on Labor Day nine.
Speaker 1: So if Toddle House had just let Joe Senior invest,
Speaker 1: what we'd probably be looking at? What was the term?
Speaker 1: He said, maybe be toddle House on the web nout, Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I'm pretty sure it was called toddle House because
Speaker 1: toddlers were the most expensive item on their menu. That
Speaker 1: sounds about right, actually, So I looked up a little
Speaker 1: more about Toddle House, and while the chain was really popular.
Speaker 1: It was only a counter with about ten stools max,
Speaker 1: so only ten people could sit at them at any
Speaker 1: one time, and there weren't any booths. So it was
Speaker 1: actually a big deal when waffle House took some of
Speaker 1: that model and made it more family friendly and suddenly
Speaker 1: it wasn't just like a place for cops or nighthawks.
Speaker 1: But the other thing I found fascinating was that Tom
Speaker 1: was in real estate, and so much of the waffle
Speaker 1: House model is based on really picking the right location.
Speaker 1: Like waffle House doesn't do any marketing, and unlike Denny's
Speaker 1: or Eyehop, you're not gonna find commercials for them on TV.
Speaker 1: They kind of just let their cheap good food talk
Speaker 1: for itself and you know, customers getting the word out
Speaker 1: for them. But picking the right locations obviously matters. You know,
Speaker 1: That's something I'd never really thought about before, Like I've
Speaker 1: never seen a commercial for waffle House, but it never
Speaker 1: really occurred to me that now I'm kind of writing
Speaker 1: a jingle in my head about the waffle House song
Speaker 1: would be. But anyway, I did read this piece where
Speaker 1: the founders would actually go to prospective locations and they
Speaker 1: just sit on the side of the road there, and
Speaker 1: what they do is they like count the traffic and
Speaker 1: see how many cars were passing by on these rainy
Speaker 1: days before they would really decide to make that investment.
Speaker 1: And it's also why waffle house colors are yellow and black.
Speaker 1: So there's this common myth that you know, these colors
Speaker 1: are attribute to Georgia Tech because Joe Rogers Senior happened
Speaker 1: to go there, which you might have made sense, but
Speaker 1: it's actually black and yellow because it reminded them of
Speaker 1: a school buss visibility and that you could still see
Speaker 1: it in that heavy rain or heavy fog. Well, you know,
Speaker 1: they're actually a lot of little myths like that. Like
Speaker 1: there's also this idea that waffle houses break their locks
Speaker 1: in a ceremony when they first opened a store, because
Speaker 1: you know, the places there are twenty four hours, so
Speaker 1: they don't need them. But the doors do lock because
Speaker 1: you want to be able to close the doors if
Speaker 1: you're remodeling, or you know, to protect your customers from
Speaker 1: a parking lot full of people putting their feet into cheeseburger.
Speaker 1: Of course, but you know what waffle houses don't have really, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it doesn't that blow your mind anyway, I want to
Speaker 1: talk about some of the secrets of the waffle house
Speaker 1: kitchen and how they stay open during emergencies, and why
Speaker 1: academics use waffle house as an economic indicator. But before
Speaker 1: we dive into any of that, let's take a quick break.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to Part Time Genius, where today we're talking
Speaker 1: all things affle House. Now, before we get into FEMA
Speaker 1: and why waffle houses don't have ovens, I did want
Speaker 1: you to know that waffle House is inspired a surprising
Speaker 1: amount of art, including this book of poetry I found
Speaker 1: called waffle House Prophets by Kenny Peevey. I just want
Speaker 1: to say, Kenny Peavey a lot. You should and and
Speaker 1: because April is National Poetry Month, you can. And I
Speaker 1: thought i'd recite the first poem from this book. It's
Speaker 1: called Jesus stumbled in. Oh you're ready already, I've already
Speaker 1: got chill bumps. So Jesus slipped into this place just
Speaker 1: the other night. Many people thought he was just another drunk,
Speaker 1: a beggar, or a trucker unhappy with his order. So
Speaker 1: that's it. That's that's the hoopful. It's pretty deep. Actually,
Speaker 1: I don't know if it's deep or not, because I
Speaker 1: don't really understand poetry, but just the idea of Jesus
Speaker 1: said a waffle house feels deep to me. I Like,
Speaker 1: how you just blamed all of poetry for this one.
Speaker 1: That's great, all right, Well, let's shift to something a
Speaker 1: little less poetic and talk about waffle house and disaster time. So,
Speaker 1: and this is always such an interesting thing to look into,
Speaker 1: and a lot has been made in the press about
Speaker 1: the fact that FEMA has this unofficial waffle house index,
Speaker 1: you know, when they're trying to determine, you know, how
Speaker 1: an area is doing after a storm. Well, green means
Speaker 1: that the waffle house is functioning like normal, you know,
Speaker 1: full electricity, full menu. Yellow is when they're serving a
Speaker 1: limited menu and drawing energy off of a generator. And
Speaker 1: then red is when the weather is so bad that
Speaker 1: waffle house is closed and it's five thirty eight, puts
Speaker 1: it it's time to panic. And what's weird, though, is
Speaker 1: how rare this is. For example, in two thousand eleven,
Speaker 1: when Hurricane Irene hit twenty two waffle houses lost power.
Speaker 1: Only one of them closed for more than a single day,
Speaker 1: which is incredible, But like, how do they pull that off?
Speaker 1: How do they manage to stay stocked up. Well. Part
Speaker 1: of it is just how thoughtful they are about the
Speaker 1: food that they're serving, Like they have this very limited
Speaker 1: no water menu for when the water main breaks, hamburgers,
Speaker 1: grilled cheese, sandwiches, sausage, biscuits. It's amazing that they're still
Speaker 1: pumping out food. But preparation and communication is just super
Speaker 1: important to the company, So every employee gets instructions and
Speaker 1: these preparedness cards, and these details come from a trade
Speaker 1: magazine about supply chains. But essentially waffle House has this
Speaker 1: hierarchy who can stay to work and who has family needs,
Speaker 1: and they are these jump teams like these are the
Speaker 1: emergency workers that can come in to help a reinforcement.
Speaker 1: And part of the genius of waffle houses because the
Speaker 1: chefs and the wait staff they're all using the same system,
Speaker 1: so they're basically plug in play. So you can put
Speaker 1: one grill chef in another location and they'd be able
Speaker 1: to function just the same. I mean, that's so simple.
Speaker 1: It's it's kind of like how Southwest I think only
Speaker 1: used one type of plane for all its pilots, and
Speaker 1: also because it made its repairs easier, like it had
Speaker 1: all these extra efficiencies it is pretty amazing. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: the other genius of the system is that every restaurant
Speaker 1: has a nearby warehouse stocked with these foods. I've never
Speaker 1: seen one of these. I didn't even know this existed,
Speaker 1: but these are all these non perishable items that could
Speaker 1: get them through a week of the worst conditions. And
Speaker 1: it's just incredibly buttoned up and everybody knows their responsibilities
Speaker 1: both before and during any sort of disaster. I mean,
Speaker 1: all of that is remarkable, and I do want to
Speaker 1: get into some of the kitchen stuff soon. But the
Speaker 1: BBC did this big list of food as economic indicators,
Speaker 1: and of course waffle House was on there with their
Speaker 1: link to FEMA indicating how fast businesses will recover. But
Speaker 1: there are some other things on the list as well.
Speaker 1: I know we've talked about, like the big Back Index,
Speaker 1: and uh, if you look at the price of a
Speaker 1: big mac across the globe, you can actually compare the
Speaker 1: prices and understand things about the economies, Like if a
Speaker 1: big mac costs five dollars in the US but to
Speaker 1: seventy five in Turkey, you can actually tell that the
Speaker 1: currency there is undervalued. But because Big max haven't invaded
Speaker 1: Africa in the same way they've taken off in other
Speaker 1: parts of the world. Economists lean more on KFC to
Speaker 1: analyze purchasing power there, so there are a lot of
Speaker 1: kfcas and I guess so you can also look at
Speaker 1: potato sales and French fry sales and Asia's and economic indicator. Basically,
Speaker 1: when fry sales go down and the US farmers get hit,
Speaker 1: it's a pretty good sign that the Asian economy isn't
Speaker 1: working like it should be. You know, I love that
Speaker 1: type of stuff for some reason. I've actually read recently
Speaker 1: that Mars bars in the UK have mostly stayed steady
Speaker 1: with the buying power of the pound. So you can
Speaker 1: use the price of Mars bars to see that train
Speaker 1: travel costs have gone down over the years, you know,
Speaker 1: while graduate school salaries have gone up. It's I love
Speaker 1: this kind of I want to do a whole episode
Speaker 1: on it. So let's get back in the kitchen, because
Speaker 1: I do want to hear about how the wait staff
Speaker 1: gets all of those orders correct. Yeah, the ordering in
Speaker 1: the plating is clearly in the art. In fact, I
Speaker 1: read this great article called Around the Clock at waffle House,
Speaker 1: and one of the lines in there is from a
Speaker 1: fancy chef in town who basically says, if you see
Speaker 1: waffle House on a chef's resume, hire them. I mean,
Speaker 1: the volume of orders can be insane, but the whole
Speaker 1: goal of waffle House is to have every table in
Speaker 1: and out in twenty minutes, so their turnover is supposed
Speaker 1: to be that fast, at least optimally. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: that makes sense, like they want to welcome you but
Speaker 1: also make sure you can like make it a quick
Speaker 1: pit stop if you have to get back on the road.
Speaker 1: But of course, if the restaurant is empty, waffle House
Speaker 1: isn't gonna haras see you. Like They're gonna let you
Speaker 1: sit there and read a book and sip your coffee
Speaker 1: if you want. Yeah. I love the signs that say
Speaker 1: they have free WiFi. Just the idea of like sticky
Speaker 1: syrup and the computers that I don't know about that,
Speaker 1: but but it is why waffle House was so late
Speaker 1: to take credit cards, Like they only started taking credit
Speaker 1: cards I think it was in two thousand and six
Speaker 1: because cash was just that much faster. But the system
Speaker 1: for ordering is fascinating. It's called pull, drop and mark,
Speaker 1: So after an order gets taken, the server writes it
Speaker 1: on a pad and then they yell pull, and if
Speaker 1: you've been there, you've noticed them doing this, like pull
Speaker 1: three bacons, which gets pulled from the fridge. Then they
Speaker 1: yell the drop, which means drop to hash browns on
Speaker 1: the grill or whatever specifics they're mentioning, and then they
Speaker 1: yell mark, and that's where the grill operator marks down
Speaker 1: the combination on a plate. This all comes from this
Speaker 1: bone Apotite article where the writer Andrew Knowlton, he tried
Speaker 1: to work at a waffle house I think for twenty
Speaker 1: four hours. Definitely got to work out in the process.
Speaker 1: So obviously the mark part of that is where all
Speaker 1: that like elaborate plating stuff happens. And you know, I've
Speaker 1: seen on social media how if you range a pat
Speaker 1: of butter on a plate, it tells the cheft that
Speaker 1: not only do they need to cook a t bone,
Speaker 1: but the direction of the butter actually says how well
Speaker 1: to cook it? Yeah, and and speaking which they actually
Speaker 1: serve four tea bones a minute. You somehow forgot this
Speaker 1: one when you're stacking up sausage patties earlier. According to
Speaker 1: the company, they serve more tea bones than any other
Speaker 1: establishment in the world. I love that this is the
Speaker 1: thing they can brag about, but it is pretty amazing
Speaker 1: actually about I think it's a hundred and thirty five
Speaker 1: million of them since opening in nineteen. Lot of t bones.
Speaker 1: But back to the planning, you're right, I mean, the
Speaker 1: system is definitely elaborate. An apple butter on a plate
Speaker 1: indicates a certain type of toast, or a jelly packet
Speaker 1: at the bottom of a plate means scrambled eggs. There's
Speaker 1: a cheat sheet, of course, but at some point it
Speaker 1: becomes second nature if you work in the grill long enough,
Speaker 1: which you know. It's why you can bring in a
Speaker 1: cook during an emergency and they don't miss a beat.
Speaker 1: I mean, the other thing I'm obsessed with, partially because
Speaker 1: I never noticed this before, is that waffle houses don't
Speaker 1: have fryers, right like, they don't have fires, and they
Speaker 1: don't have ovens, So when they make biscuits, they're just
Speaker 1: using these like frozen pucks that they cook on the girl. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and as much as I love waff house, I will
Speaker 1: say biscuits are not the specialty. There by any means
Speaker 1: no offense to them, but that it's just not and
Speaker 1: the deep Friar thing is interesting though, because all their
Speaker 1: competitors use them, you know, Denny's uses them, waffle King,
Speaker 1: and of course huddle House huddle House. I love that
Speaker 1: there's a toddle house, a waffle House, and a huddle House,
Speaker 1: like so many houses. I actually looked up the huddle
Speaker 1: House slogan just because you know, I figured out had
Speaker 1: to be like huddle up at the huddle House or
Speaker 1: something that's not that's totally this opportunity, and instead it's uh,
Speaker 1: any meal anytime, breakfast, lunch, dinner. I just like that
Speaker 1: what the meals are. Well, it's actually interesting to contrast
Speaker 1: that slogan with waffle House's latest slogan. Yeah, much like
Speaker 1: waffle House, the purpose for huddle House was to create community.
Speaker 1: It was called huddle house because they wanted people to
Speaker 1: huddle up there after the big high school football game
Speaker 1: or some other cool event. But you know, that slogan
Speaker 1: any meal anytime is pretty generic. And then waffle House,
Speaker 1: by contrast, tries to be as focused on its employees
Speaker 1: as it is its customers. So it's really interesting to
Speaker 1: think about this as a slogan. So their most recent
Speaker 1: motto is America's place to work, America's place to eat.
Speaker 1: And you know, apparently you can't open a waffle House
Speaker 1: franchise unless you've worked there. And I was reading that
Speaker 1: like all the back office employees actually have to spend
Speaker 1: a day working in the restaurants, and supposedly employees also
Speaker 1: get stock at the company for the service. I saw
Speaker 1: that written about a lot. I actually couldn't find too
Speaker 1: much on that front. But the one thing I do
Speaker 1: know is that both Tom and Joe Sr. Really loved
Speaker 1: working at the stores, and they loved the community that
Speaker 1: the stores seemed to foster around them. And while they
Speaker 1: wanted waffle House to be fast they actually never wanted
Speaker 1: it to be fast food, Hence you know those ceramic
Speaker 1: plates and some of the other little family oriented touches.
Speaker 1: But before we finish up, I I do want to
Speaker 1: talk a little bit about race relations at waffle House
Speaker 1: and how the company is historically positioned itself. But before
Speaker 1: we get into that, let's take a quick break. Welcome
Speaker 1: back to Part Time Genius, where we're talking all things
Speaker 1: waffle House now, MAGA, before we get to the fun facts,
Speaker 1: and I know you wanted to talk a little bit
Speaker 1: about some of the issues waffle House has faced with,
Speaker 1: you know, race or race relations over the years, and
Speaker 1: also what their philosophy has been all along. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: one of the things waffle House talks about a lot
Speaker 1: is inclusion. The name of their in house magazine is inc,
Speaker 1: which apparently stands for inclusion. And also there's weird things
Speaker 1: in pop culture, like there's a John Mayer song where
Speaker 1: the lyrics are, quote Martin Luther King had a dream
Speaker 1: and I think waffle House was in it, which just
Speaker 1: feels a little ridiculous to me. And anyway, the way
Speaker 1: the company and others talk about the chain is almost
Speaker 1: as a place that's kind of egalitarian but also consciously diverse.
Speaker 1: Like the company's sponsored hip hop film festivals. Uh, they've
Speaker 1: actually sponsored international volunteering programs, and they actually try to
Speaker 1: celebrate the stories of all types of people who work
Speaker 1: their way up in management at the company. There was
Speaker 1: also this Daily Show segment. I don't know if you've
Speaker 1: seen it, and this only like tangentially relates to waffle House,
Speaker 1: but the Daily Show set this fake gay couple to
Speaker 1: propose to one another in an Alabama and Mississippi waffle house,
Speaker 1: you know, just to see the reactions, and in both
Speaker 1: places people just kind of politely applauded and went on
Speaker 1: with their business. Yeah, it was undercover, but you know,
Speaker 1: it kind of seemed to show that everyone's welcome there.
Speaker 1: But there's also been a disconcerting amount of discrimination lawsuits
Speaker 1: over the years filed against the company, and and that
Speaker 1: worried me. So I wanted to look into that, and
Speaker 1: so what's the corporate response to that. Ben They've they've
Speaker 1: kind of doubled down on the in house storytelling with
Speaker 1: things like their Inclusion magazine, but they also talked about
Speaker 1: it like it's a problem of growing too fast, too quickly,
Speaker 1: and that it's a little hard to reinforce values across
Speaker 1: news stores. But it did make me wonder about the
Speaker 1: early days and whether waffle House had the sort of
Speaker 1: sit ins and counter protests that you saw in other
Speaker 1: places in the South, and did that you know, I
Speaker 1: always think of Atlanta as you know, the city that's
Speaker 1: too busy to hate, but but obviously that wasn't the
Speaker 1: case everywhere in the city. Yeah. So the only account
Speaker 1: I could find was in the Atlanta Daily World, which
Speaker 1: had a segregation as bent, I guess, but their account
Speaker 1: of the story, and this is in nineteen six four,
Speaker 1: was that twelve protesters came in and they weren't served.
Speaker 1: But instead of serving some people and not others, the
Speaker 1: headwaiter just stopped service for everyone at the store and
Speaker 1: until he got like a response from his manager, and
Speaker 1: then an hour or so later, the management confirmed that
Speaker 1: everyone should be served, regardless of race. And you know,
Speaker 1: when the story was told years later, Joe Senior claimed
Speaker 1: that he was personally involved in the decision and that
Speaker 1: waffle House was always built as a place of integration.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm guessing there were plenty of waffle Houses
Speaker 1: where people weren't treated fairly, but it is nice to
Speaker 1: hear that those twelve protesters got served, and you know
Speaker 1: that no one was served until a decision was made.
Speaker 1: And I like thinking of waffles and its most ideal terms,
Speaker 1: and I guess Anthony Bourdain came away thinking that way too,
Speaker 1: So why don't we end this with a quote from
Speaker 1: him about waffle House. Waffle House is indeed marvelous, an
Speaker 1: irony free zone where everything is beautiful and nothing hurts,
Speaker 1: where everybody, regardless of race, creed, color, or degree of inebriation,
Speaker 1: is welcomed. It's warm yellow glow, a beacon of hope
Speaker 1: and salvation, inviting the hungry, the loss, the seriously hammered
Speaker 1: all across the south and side, a place of safety
Speaker 1: and nourishment. It never closes. It is always, always faithful,
Speaker 1: always there for you. I like that. So time for
Speaker 1: the fact of time for the fact though, m did
Speaker 1: you know that waffle House played a role in the
Speaker 1: birth of Reddit. According to a co founder, Alex Shnian quote,
Speaker 1: I walked out of an ls at prep course and
Speaker 1: into a waffle House and real as I wanted to
Speaker 1: not be a lawyer and that I had better come
Speaker 1: up with something better. And to me read it definitely
Speaker 1: feels like a more interesting path. Yeah, I'm super interesting path.
Speaker 1: All right. So you remember how I told you about
Speaker 1: waffle Houses record label at the top of the show.
Speaker 1: So they don't just put out the six singles like
Speaker 1: the ones I was telling you about. Waffle House Records
Speaker 1: also occasionally puts out music videos. It wasn't this amazing.
Speaker 1: It's first released in two thousand seven was just called
Speaker 1: Bert and it was named for the chili. So did
Speaker 1: you know that in the very early days waffle House
Speaker 1: helped to launch Chick fil A Sandwiches. I mean, they're
Speaker 1: both Atlanta brands, and waffle House got a license to seldom,
Speaker 1: which made it more popular. Wow, I had never heard
Speaker 1: that before. All right, well, here's a strange fact. The
Speaker 1: two co founders of waffle House, Tom and Joe, they
Speaker 1: died within one month of each other. Tom died at
Speaker 1: the age of nineties seven, while Joe died at the
Speaker 1: age of eight. That's amazing. I don't know why I
Speaker 1: didn't know this earlier, But did you know that waffle
Speaker 1: House cater's mules and if you have more than twenty
Speaker 1: guests are planning to spend more than two dollars, they'll
Speaker 1: offer a quote the same unique experiences in a restaurant.
Speaker 1: They also have a food truck called the Waffle Truck
Speaker 1: that looks like a restaurant on wheels. I don't know
Speaker 1: how I didn't know this, but I do know that
Speaker 1: I'm going to put in a request for this here
Speaker 1: at one of the house. I feel like for all
Speaker 1: the Southern companies we worked for, we should have had
Speaker 1: like a catered meal from waffle I don't that's gonna
Speaker 1: be interesting. I wonder how the catering works, like do
Speaker 1: do waffles travel well? Waffle truck? Yeah? Well, apparently when
Speaker 1: a man walked into a South Carolina Waffles at two
Speaker 1: am and found the one employee asleep, he actually took
Speaker 1: his meal into his own hands. He waited about ten
Speaker 1: minutes and then he took selfies as he cooked a
Speaker 1: double bacon cheese steak melt on the grill. I love
Speaker 1: that he wouldn't just like make bacon and eggs like.
Speaker 1: He went all out with this and then he cleaned
Speaker 1: the grill. Later, the waff Fliles actually offered him a job.
Speaker 1: I'm guessing that other guy probably didn't take his job well.
Speaker 1: When a teenage waitress was photographed cutting up food for
Speaker 1: an older patron and Lamarck, Texas, it went viral this
Speaker 1: year and in her honor, the town's mayor declared March eighth, two,
Speaker 1: eighteen nine Williams Day. And even better than that, Texas
Speaker 1: Southern University actually offered her a scholarship for four thousand
Speaker 1: dollars a semester, which is amazing, Right, that's a lot
Speaker 1: of money. Well, what's amazing is that you read those
Speaker 1: sorts of stories all over the place. In the Bonappetite story,
Speaker 1: Andrew Knowlton talks about how easy it is to recognize
Speaker 1: the waffle house lean, as he calls it, when patrons
Speaker 1: are drunk and sleepy. And you know how you watched
Speaker 1: a wonderful waitress put a cold towel on a patron's neck,
Speaker 1: given this little shoulder massage and and revive him. But
Speaker 1: but that's actually not my fact. That's just the sweet story.
Speaker 1: So my last one is, did you know that every
Speaker 1: year waffle house celebrates Valentine's Day? Didn't? They do it
Speaker 1: up with table cloths and candles? And it apparently started
Speaker 1: at a John's Creek waffle house close by here, but
Speaker 1: now over a hundred and fifty different places celebrate. And
Speaker 1: it isn't an easy reservation to get. You've actually got
Speaker 1: to reserve well in advanced if you want to dine
Speaker 1: cheap with your sweetie. So I think maybe we know
Speaker 1: what we're doing with our wives next Valentine definitely, And
Speaker 1: I love the idea of table cloths and candle lay
Speaker 1: and a little no socks, no shirt, no knuckle heads
Speaker 1: playing from that waffle house juke box, which is a
Speaker 1: real song. But I think you have to take home
Speaker 1: today's golden waffle Oh wow, I'm so honored. All right, Well,
Speaker 1: thank you guys for listening today. If we forgot any
Speaker 1: great facts about waffle house or waffles or grit I'm
Speaker 1: just getting hungry thinking about this, we would love to
Speaker 1: hear those from you. You can email us part Time
Speaker 1: Genius at how stuff Works dot com or hit us
Speaker 1: up on our seven fact hot line that's one eight
Speaker 1: four four pt Genius, or obviously you can reach us
Speaker 1: on Facebook or Twitter. Thanks so much for listening. Thanks
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