John Kerry has NOTHING on these guys

When the fam and I went down to visit my sister in Florida last week, we opted not to fly like most normal people. In an effort to save money on tickets and rental cars – as well to save our sanity from trying to corral two kids and all their usual tote-along crap through an airport – we drove the thousand-plus miles. That however, as they say, is another story and shall be told another time. The trip was far from perfect, yet far from disaster, and all the aggravation was made worth it by one thing, perhaps my most favorite thing about driving through the southern states: Waffle House.

I first discovered Waffle House a few years ago in Louisville, Kentucky while I was working the Kentucky Derby. I had no idea at the time that it was a fifty-year-old franchise. Other than the giant yellow sign out front, it didn’t seem to have any of the usual trappings of a typical chain restaurant. Consisting of a few small booths and one long counter facing into the grill area where waitresses and short order cooks bustle about in full view, the whole place seemed built more around functionality than presentation, giving it the appearance of a small independently owned greasy spoon than anything designed by a corporation. But the food was great, and even better it was cheap! I got myself an “All Star Special” consisting of bacon, eggs, grits, toast, coffee and, of course, a waffle, all for less than ten dollars including tip.

Back at home, my job often had me driving from Philadelphia down to Washington, D.C. and I began to notice that familiar yellow sign on my trips south. It seemed as soon as I crossed the southern Pennsylvania border, otherwise known as the famous Mason/Dixon line, Waffle Houses started popping up at every other exit. I stopped in often and grew to love the place. The food, as I’ve said, is delicious and, for the price, absolutely cannot be beaten. Of course, as they rely heavily on butter and grease for their main components the cuisine is obviously no friend of the heart, but so what? If you want healthy, go get an egg-white omelet at the Wheatgerm Café.

More than their food though, the overall Waffle House atmosphere is what has made me keep coming back over the years. Walking through the front door you get the impression that you’ve crossed a threshold into some truck stop throwback to the 1950’s. But this isn’t just bogus nostalgia. Never for a moment do you get the impression that anything in this place has been designed by some suit in an office building three thousand miles away. There aren’t logos and merchandise plastered on every wall, the food specials don’t have overly cutesy or flamboyant names, and even the jukebox spinning the occasional oldies tune is a basic model (some might even say “cheap”) without glowing pink bubbles or backlit displays.

Most notable at every Waffle House though, is the staff. Seeing as how this is primarily a southern and midwest chain, it hardly seems a coincidence that the staff is generally comprised of people who could be described as “trailer trash.” I know I’m generalizing in the worst way here, but with pretty much zero exceptions across the entire chain, this is not the kind of place you’d go into to ogle the waitresses. Be that as it may, you will never, and I mean never, meet more genuinely nice people working in any restaurant. They’re not operating on the “Ten Key Points of Customer Service” handed down from the company manual or trying to hit certain timing and upselling benchmarks as dictated by their corporate managers. This is simply, purely down home courtesy of the highest caliber. There is never a roll of the eyes or a stressed out huff when you ask for more coffee. You never detect even trace amounts of annoyance when a customer places a complicated order. And when the waitress strikes up a conversation, you never get the impression that they are simply trying to schmooze you over in the hope of earning a bigger tip. I don’t know if Waffle House uses a different style of recruitment or if a certain type of person just naturally gravitates toward this particular establishment, but I have never met a Waffle House employee who wasn’t that perfect combination of friendly, helpful and prompt – everything, in short, that you’d want in a waitress.

Over the course of our long roundtrip to Florida we ate at Waffle House several times. I still order the same thing I did on my first visit, the All Star Special. And I still I love every greasy mouthful of bacon and egg, still savor every buttery sweet bite of waffle, still relish the indescribable texture of grits on toast, and still wash it all down with multiple cups of Waffle House coffee, which in and of itself tastes inexplicably better than the crap they pour at most any other restaurant. As ever, the staff was wonderfully friendly and cordial, even as our children proceeded to make a gigantic mess of our table and the floor around us. We left full, satisfied, nurtured even. But most importantly, we left not broke. We’re home again, officially north of the line and already I long for the day when I’ll be able make the trip south for another warm and friendly helping of quite possibly the most awesome restaurant chain in the world.