The Miami Herald from Miami, Florida • 513

-TT -4 i I i I WWW HERALD COM THURSDAY AUGUST 18 2005I5C RESTAURANTS i Folksy leaning makes Waffle House a home JsmartL BDXl BY THE NUMBERS Number of Waffle Houses: 1497 States with Waffle House restaurants: 25 Eggs served by Waffle House in a year: 185 million Estimated total waffles served since 1955: 442451500 Pounds of pecans that go into Waffle House waffles each year: 334000 Pounds of grits served by Waffle House each year: 32 million Cups of coffee served each year by Waffle House: 95 million In Waffle House lingo how the trademark hash browns are served in any combination: Scattered: Scattered on the grill while cooked Smothered: Smothered with onions Covered: Covered with melted cheese Chunked: Chunks of hickory smoked ham are added Topped: Topped with chili Diced: Fresh diced tomatoes are thrown in SOURCE: WAFFLE HOUSE Fifty years later Waffle House is still diner food with a working-class sensibility covered and smothered with personality BY KRISTEN WYATT Associated Press ATLANTA well past midnight and a movie theater manager sits down to supper after his shift A couple nearby sips coffee In walk two women who have in all fairness seen better days their jeans worn thin their hair matted The women even merit a stare This is Waffle House This is where college pro- fessors and construction workers sit side-by-side at yellow counters a 24-hour diner where the always on the grits always bubbling where hungry folks from all walks have been coming for 50 years to get cheap hot food become as familiar as the matter-of-fact greeting: what There are 1500 Waffle Houses spread across 25 states as far west as Arizona and as far north as Illinois but the chain is still rooted deeply in the South and retains a distinctively down-home blue-collar aura REMEMBER GRANDMA? Maybe the simple menu anchored by eggs grits and hash browns and in cheese and onions the firm cash-only policy or the fact it serves most meals for under $5 It somehow feels like breakfast at before she worried about cholesteroL know at every highway exit a simmering pot of grits waiting for said John Edge director of the Southern Foodways Alliance at the University of Mississippi House is a com- DOWN-HOME DINING: Waffle House founders Joe Rogers left and Tom Forkner came up with the idea for a sit-down restaurant that rivaled the speed of drive-ins Norcross Ga A plaque in the lobby says the whole building is dedicated to the Old Cash Customer Who Made It All For an idea of how well the little yellow diners are doing consider this: 2 percent of all eggs produced in the United States for food service end up on a Waffle House plate Forkner and Rogers no longer run the company but executives are still required to work holidays including Christmas and New They figure that if waitresses have to show up on Thanksgiving executives should too a Rogers said As for the future Rogers and Forkner envision a lot more Waffle Houses where things stay the same Except for salads and sandwich wraps and more pictures for customers who speak English it looks about the same as it did in 1955 serve the basic foods and the basic foods never Rogers said the restaurant was among the first eateries to integrate after its founding in 1950s Atlanta serve all said co-founder Joe Rogers just a target not guilty and never have Waffle House started in September 1955 after Rogers then a regional manager for a now-defunct diner chain out of Memphis Tenn walked up to a real estate agent who lived two doors down and proposed a partnership Rogers knew fast-food shops like were just starting and he had an idea for an in-between a sit-down restaurant that rivaled the speed of drive-ins said build a restaurant and show you how to run recalled Tom Forkner Waffle other founder The two built a restaurant in Avondale Estates an east Atlanta suburb and painted it yellow to catch the eye of motorists It was Forkner who proposed naming the restaurant for the biggest moneymaker on its menu: the waffle was the highest profit item you could do so I said it Waffle House and encourage people to eat MORE THAN BREAKFAST The biggest problem initially was letting customers know that they also served burgers and T-bones for lunch and dinner And people could get the full menu any time a patty melt at 7 in the morning or waffles and grits at 4 pan When Waffle House opened only one other restaurant in Atlanta was open 24 hours Rogers convinced Forkner that in the modem world people would like a restaurant that never closed not even on Christmas Forkner was skeptical until he visited his restaurant in the middle of the night thought everyone went to bed at Forkner said I was By 1960 there were four Waffle Houses around Atlanta Inspired by the rapid expansion of profits were plunged into expansion and Waffle House started franchising By the late 1960s there were 27 restaurants then the formula picked up steam Today Macon Ga alone has 10 Waffle Houses and only nine Back at the Atlanta Waffle House movie manager Charles Kimbro has been eating the patty-melt plates with hash browns since he was a kid started early with my he said His father still goes every day for morning coffee food is fast and always Nowhere is Waffle workingman vibe stronger than at its headquarters in MlSouth may mntty or towel pile without noth- pany that manages to be a national presence that still generates local pride and tough to But such warm feelings have been tempered in recent years by accusations of racism In January black customers from four Southern states filed federal lawsuits claiming that Waffle House servers announced they serve blacks deliberately served unsanitary food to minority patrons directed racial epithets at blacks and became verbally abusive when asked to wait on blacks This month the operator of Waffle Houses in Virginia settled lawsuits with 12 customers who said they were treated rudely Waffle House executives insist been sued only because a big company and are quick to point out that a lnyle buMmo lorallon tllgihiMv fiolArr 7 4 nr 10 cnmprtwV too only he ImlolW on Ki reeling oiler ovoihil-l to new bulne Internet tervke cutlomer only Servo not avolhiNe In all own Other conhhin may dot eod ene 1.