I was never sure about them and never took the time to stop in to check them out.īut there we were on July 4 in Hope, Arkansas, with not a lot of breakfast options so we decided to chance it. Always delicious, never judgmental and, most importantly, always there 24 hours a day 365 days a year.We’ve all seen them, those simple yellow and black signs that say Waffle House. Like my home away from home – the Waffle House. I get that metaphorically and physically. But she ended it with this: “When all is said and done, we’re just all walking each other home.” The author Anne Lemott wrote a Facebook post about turning 61 (whipper snapper) that’s worth reading. With hash browns – covered, peppered and capped (with American cheese, jalapenos and mushrooms) – and a Diet Coke to wash it all down.Īnd I thought back to the things I’ve learned in 63 years, the chief among them is that you really stop growing emotionally at 16 and you just overcompensate for everything else after that. A 10-napkin affair if there ever was one. Texas Toast Bacon Cheesesteak Sandwich, grilled in butter. It was the perfect place for birthday lunch. And after Bunny’s harrowing night in substandard lodging after this year’s ice storm prevented us from fetching her from the airport, we ended up at the Waffle House and everything just seemed alright again. After the famous 10,000 bee invasion of our master bathroom at 5117, King Daddy set off a bee bomb and we retreated to the Waffle House for a pork chop, grits and fried eggs to calm our nerves. My sainted father-in-law and I would go to the Waffle House in Knoxville every year on frigid November mornings before we picked up our Thanksgiving turkey and dressing from Ramsey’s. There’s a photo of Taylor Swift on the wall. Vince Gill likes his sausage patties smashed and kind of crispy around the edges. I just saw that their first daughter, who was wrapping her arms around her daddy’s leg, is about to turn 18 and go off to college. When Noah was little, we went for breakfast one morning and waiting right next to us was Tim McGraw and Faith Hill. There’s no cutting in line for a booth just because you might be famous, and even celebrities love the Waffle House. I love that the Waffle House is democratic. I have never had a bad meal at the Waffle House and that’s saying something after more than 30 years. And I love the fact that everything – completely cooked to order – comes out uniformly delicious. I learned from Andrew Knowlton that the cooks use condiment packets that each mean something to mark the plates so they can remember every order because they get no written tickets. I think Waffle House’s cooks are amazing. I love watching the waitresses stand on “the spot” behind the counter to shout out orders to the cooks. In fact, the older I get the more I realize I don’t even like those people. There are people who turn up their noses at the Waffle House, with it’s garish yellow sign and waitresses that call you “hon” and “sweetheart.” I don’t get those people. We are having crab legs with melted butter for supper (I will have the boys shell them as my one point of vanity today) and there’s a blackberry cobbler in the oven.īut I did require a trip to the Waffle House for lunch. I have more than I deserve of Happy Birthdays on Facebook. My beautiful sister called last night to chat and I heard from my beloved mother-in-law this morning. I got a cookbook from King Daddy and a lovely bottle of real French champagne from Dammit Boy. I don’t feel any different today than I did yesterday or, for that matter, last year or the year before. I will admit that this is not a milestone birthday for me. – Andrew Knowlton, restaurant editor of Bon Appetit and Georgia boy. It’s a regional touchstone right up there with SEC football and pork rinds. The layout is always the same-open kitchen, booths, counter seats, jukebox-and the double-sided laminated menu always includes breakfast, burgers, pork chops, T-bones, waffles, and, most famously, hash browns… the Waffle House is a lot more than a place to eat a patty melt and drink a Coke. Think of the Waffle House as the 1950s Main Street diner you never had growing up.
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