Happy Happy Waffle House

You native southerners may think I'm nuts, but I'm crazy about the Waffle House. We didn't have them where I grew up. I'd never even seen one until I moved to Texas. All those years I'd drive the Texas highways and see them alongside the road, and I'd wonder what marvelous treats lay within. I never set foot in one until that road trip with my girlfriend. Turns out, it was everything I'd hoped for.

The Waffle House is great. First off, they specialize in waffles. I mean waffles, man. How freaking cool is that?

I love everything about the place, from the food on the menu to the unpretentious atmosphere. When you go to an IHOP or Denny's, you get a feeling that the menu was designed by a marketing agency and subject to rigorous focus group evaluation. At the Waffle House, it's like some crazy guy sat down and thought, "What other weird shit can we mix in with them hash browns?"

The bizarrely complicated menu is a graphic designer's slow-motion trainwreck accident. This is a restaurant that caters primarily to bleary-eyed travelers and tipsy late night partiers. You know, people with malfunctioning higher-level brain functions. The Waffle House makes them sort through a menu more complex than any I've seen. It's cruel, and I like that.

Earlier this year, a group of us went to Galveston for the weekend. We searched for the cheapest hotel we could find. The place was pretty skanky, but it turned out to be next to a Waffle House. So, things couldn't be better. I ate there every day. Sometimes twice in a day: once after the music wound down and the bar threw us out, and again for breakfast when I woke up later that afternoon.

That was the last time I'd been to a Waffle House—until last night.

I was teaching a class in southeast Austin last night. I'd been on my feet and talking a couple hours, and my head was a little fuzzy. I missed the turn off Riverside onto Montopolis. I was continuing towards Ben White, in precisely the wrong direction. I decide to continue on and loop around to 183. I looked off to the distance and—hark!—there was a Waffle House!

Turns out, I'd stumbled across the grand opening of a new Waffle House. It's on Ben White eastbound towards the airport, just a bit before the 183 exit. The place was packed. There were over a dozen people behind the counter, probably doing training.

Their waffle, egg, bacon, and grits combination was on special, a buck and a half off. I ordered one, eggs over medium, with a decaf. I contemplated a side of hash browns, but decided that may be a bit piggish.

The decaf was out, and more needed to be brewed. I said I'd wait. Eventually, food started coming out and still no coffee. Finally, I just canceled it.

The over medium eggs were served with runny whites—even runnier than over easy should be. (I guess the technical term is "uncooked," eh?) The bacon never came. Given it was an opening, I was expecting things might be a little rough, but not a disaster of this scale.

But that's all ok, because my hometown now has a Waffle House. I like the Waffle House.