Authored By Sean Phipps

This week, I invited my father-in-law, Kurt, out for breakfast at the neighborhood Waffle House at 102 Signal Mountain Road. Monica is at the beach for the week and I'm taking care of the dog and watching horror movies in her absence. It's rather lonely without her around, so I'm glad it worked out. Speaking of horror. What did you guys think of "Castle Rock" on Hulu? I'm a bit lukewarm on the series, but I might have missed something. Waffle House. Right. Sorry ... I wanted to write about Waffle House this week for two reasons other than hanging out with my father-in-law. First, I really enjoy WAHO's food and atmosphere. The employees are always friendly (some of them I've seen for more than a decade). And where else can you get a front-row seat to a fast-paced kitchen without paying $100 a person? I love the antiquated terminology involved in the ordering process and back-of-the-house communication. A Waffle House cook must be among the most difficult kitchen jobs in the industry. The second reason is that I was reminded this week of the Waffle House Index. Used by FEMA during weather events, the WHI is an actual test to determine the severity of storms and the "likely scale of assistance required for disaster recovery." Basically, if a Waffle House closes it's a really bad indication. As of this article, Hurricane Florence is approaching the Carolina coastline and the Waffle House Storm Center (again, a real thing) has been activated. How cool is that? Service/atmosphere The first Waffle House opened in Atlanta in 1955. The Chattanooga area maintains about 15 Waffle House restaurants, including two off exit 174 on I-24 (which one is better?). My Waffle House is the Red Bank version, but I've eaten at most of the WAHO's in the region. Specifically, the Red Bank location has been a part of my life for years. It was where I'd have late-night study sessions during college and a perfect meeting place for friends. It's also a great place to sober up almost any time of day. I arrived at about 8:20 a.m. and Kurt sauntered in right at 8:30 a.m. How efficient is the service? I had three different employees ask me if I wanted coffee within two-minutes time. At Waffle House, you order quickly and get your food quickly. Kurt and I both enjoy a fried egg, but he prefers the "Sunny Side Up" (visible, yolky and messy) while I prefer an "Over Hard" (completely cooked) egg. I now know where my wife got her preference for runny eggs. I've never tried to order anything but eggs on the "fried" scale and I'm not sure Waffle House would poach or soft-boil and egg for you. You can certainly ask. The Food Kurt always orders the same thing — toast, eggs, bacon and hashbrowns—and I ordered the classic, "always available" All-Star Special. It's a feast of a breakfast with 2 eggs, hashbrowns, (a meat of your choice) and a glorious waffle. My other favorites are the bacon, egg and cheese sandwich, a country ham plate and if I'm feeling groggy from a night out, a triple order of hashbrowns "covered" with cheese. An aspect of Waffle House that is often ignored is the quality of the coffee. During our Coffee Crawl article with Ed Ditto, he described the coffee as "dangerously sufficient" and compared having WAHO coffee after consuming artisan coffee shop blends as “like switching over to Miller Lite after too much brown liquor.” The coffee is supplied by Royal Cup and has been since 1972. As expected, our food was cooked perfectly. Kurt commented on how much he liked the bacon. They drop that big metal iron down on it so it cooks evenly. I thought my eggs were the highlight of the meal. They were cooked perfectly. My "covered" hash browns were tasty (who doesn't like a fried potato?) and the waffle, slathered in butter in syrup, honored the namesake of the home. An opinion: With few exceptions, a frosted cake will always win over pie. Likewise, a waffle will always beat a pancake. When pressed to choose, I would choose a waffle over a pancake 95 percent of the time. The late Anthony Bourdain — who described Waffle House as "an irony-free zone where everything is beautiful and nothing hurts ..."— had a revelatory moment with a Waffle House pecan waffle. You owe it to yourself to try one. https://youtu.be/bct8stbZafI Would we go back? There are many things to love about Waffle House. From the devoted staff to the delicious food, these yellow/red restaurants are a beacon home for me. I know that wherever I might be I can walk into a Waffle House and have a good, honest and cheap meal. Monica and her father have a tradition each Christmas Eve. They meet bright and early that morning and then go shopping for gifts. It's a tradition I hope to pass along to my kids someday. And I already know what I'm getting everybody for Christmas this year.  