My wife brought home a WaffleHouse calander with coupons for free stuff every month. We live about 1500 miles from the nearest WH. Needless to say, I ain’t making a special trip for that free bowl of Chili.
I’ll be happy to send them to the “Biggest WaffleHouse Doper Junkie” out there. Just tell me a good WH story and why you want them. I’ll choose a winner based on no special criteria. I roll that way. Winner gets the lot, cause I’m only willing to invest $.39 in this “contest”.
You’ll get: 2-fer breakfasts, free coffee, free chili, $1.00 off, a bunch of other stuff and my favorite: Free Bacon!
I live just a stone’s throw from a Waffle House; there are 8 of them in Lexington by my count. I am certainly not a regular WH customer but do drop in for a bite now and then. Do I qualify as a WH junkie? I don’t think so but perhaps I will appear to be one given the underwhelming response so far to this generous offer in the OP.
Waffle Houses are sort of timeless in a way. Some of them in this area still have cigarette vending machines and old jukeboxes that play vinyl records. In my opnion, a WH is a good place to go at 4am when nothing else is open and you want hot food but you don’t feel like cooking. There’s no reason for me to go there during the day and evenings when better options are available.
A few WH moments in the life of AC…
Between 2:30am and 4:00am on weekends, drunk people frequent the WHs in this area. Usually I go at 4am or later during the calm after the storm. One time last summer on a typical 4am dining experience to WH, a male customer not yet sober asked a server if he could use the phone to call a cab. Fifteen minutes later the cab showed up and the driver walked into the WH and asked if anyone called for a cab. Server pointed the to gentleman who in turn told the cab driver to go fuck himself. Then, the still somewhat drunk gentleman asked to use the phone again to call an ambulance. From what I could tell, he did not at all appear to be in need of any medical attention. The cab driver stormed off angrily. The ambulance pulled in to the parking lot as I was getting into my car to leave. Some people are not much fun when they semi-drunk and sobering up.
The last time I went to a WH was about 4:00am New Year’s morning 2006. Waffle Houses are typically busy on major holidays when other restaurants are closed. At this point in the morning, there was no longer a line of people waiting to sit, but this WH was still packed and had been since 1:30am or so according to the server. The grill operators and servers were worn out but still in a busy rush. I give these details because one of the two grill operators had a minor outburst in part as the result of these circumstances. A customer sitting at the counter two seats down from me ordered a steak & eggs meal and wanted the eggs ‘poached.’ Eggs can be cooked in variety or ways: over easy, over medium, over well, sunny side up, scrambled, basted, and poached are the one I can recall. Apparently, poached eggs take longer to prepare than most eggs cooked by other methods…yet I do not speak from personal experience. The server called out the order to the grill operator who then turned around (so as to face away from the grill) with a stunned expression on his face as if someone had just tried to donkey punch him… and then said to the server in a slightly raised voice underneath his large grey mustache: “Who in the fuck orders fuckin’ poached eggs on fuckin’ New Year’s when when we’re fuckin’ slammed like a mother fucker.” Grill operator said these words unbeknownst to him that the guilty customer was sitting at the counter right in front of him and the grill. Customer replies sternly: “I’m that motherfucker.” A manager was not present at that hour but I think the customer was interested in reporting the incident. Personally, I think he should have given the cook a break…it’s not easy cooking for a bunch of drunks for several consecutive hours on New Year’s morning.
On New Year’s 2005 (as mentioned in the OP of this thread), I was eating at WH as the clock struck midnight marking the New Year. It was not crowded at that moment as only 5 or 6 other customers were there. One of them was a middle aged woman with smoker’s wrinkles around her lips and a cigarette in her hand; she said something depressing like: “ha, another year closer to death.”
I doubt I’m a junkie since I only eat at a WH once every couple months, but Gatopescado can be the judge of that.
I am at Waffle House at least 5 times a week, and usually for 2 or more hours. (No, I don’t work there.)
How about a story from last night? Drunk guy comes in, and asks if the grits are made with margarine or butter, because “THAT DAMN COUNTRY CROCK SHIT IS POISON!” The grill cook assures him that they’re made with butter, as she holds up the big block of margarine that they make them with. You see, at least here, Waffle House doesn’t even have butter. They have big blocks of margarine, and little tubs of margarine for your waffles.
So he’s excited about the “butter” in the grits and gets a large bowl. And then puts his phone on speakerphone, and listens to his voicemails, some of which dated back to mid-January. Then he checks his bank account activity, on speakerphone, at WH.
Where did your wife get the Wafflehouse calendar? I want one! I don’t have a poignant story but I like the hash browns, cheese and eggs and sweet tea with lemon.
My dad’s best friend was our next door neighbor, they had actually been close friends for years and he moved next door when the house came up for sale so they could be neighbors. My dad passed away when I was 15, K. (my dad’s friend) took care of my grandmothers and my mom in that guy way, he’d fix stuff and mow lawns ect. He was always there, a few years ago he passed away unexpectedly of a heart attack ( he was mowing his own mother’s yard and just fell down dead), one of the neat things I learned about him that I didn’t already know was that every christmas day for decades he’d have breakfast after church (which was the only day of the year that he went to church) and leave the waitress a hundred dollar bill for a tip. He was a very generous person, but I think he was more given to things like that than just signing a check over to a charity. I’ve kept up the tradition as best I could, (the year I went to NY for christmas was sadly lacking in Wafflehouses) only I don’t go to church at all. Waffle House is a sacred refuge for those with noplace better to go on those days of the year and times of the night when you might feel most lonely, and they make a fine cheeseburger too.
Okay! All done! I sent 3 emails to the “winners” and the first one to respond will get the goods. Good thing I checked this or they woulda been in the fire!
Respond to: “gatopescado@hotmail.com” if you are one of the chosen…
MODS: go ahead and close this if you want. We’re done here…
I’m not a regular by any stretch of the word (my wife doesn’t like Waffle House), but damn, do I ever love some Waffle House food.
I was a Waffle House cook during college in Athens, Georgia; for one entire summer I worked third shift, which was 9 p.m. to 7 a.m., five nights a week. (Yes, 50 hours a week.) I’d get off at 7 a.m., and then for an hour I’d hang out reading the paper, drinking coffee, eating, and unwinding.
Why stick around work for an hour after I was free to leave? Because the stores didn’t start selling beer until 8 a.m., you see. So I’d take off at 8, hit the Stop ‘N’ Go on Broad to pick up a couple 40s of Old Milwaukee, and go home.
It was a blazing hot summer that year (1993), but the mornings were nice and cool. Exhausted, I’d sit out on the front porch in my undershirt drinking beer from a 40-oz bottle in a paper sack, and I’d smile and wave to all my neighbors as they got in their cars to go to work.
I’d get good and loaded by about 11 a.m. and go to bed. I’d get up at about 7:00 in the evening, take a shower, and go back to work.
Not a life I could live for long, but it was nice and simple for a few months there.
