Waffle House at a Glance

Friends, things have been a little too theological and churchly around here lately.

If you are driving to Gulfport, Mississippi, or anyplace else in the South, to help restore the people to their land, there should be many opportunities along the way to indulge in the most important "foreign" cultural experience any Minnesotan ever shares when they travel southward--meals at Waffle House. There are, according to the WH official website, 1500 Waffle Houses in 25 states. Unfortunately, there are none in Northfield, Minnesota. I have had to drive at least as far as the outskirts of Kansas City, Missouri once a year for ever to get to my "happy place".

It is not lost on me that this is roughly the same distance and route in reverse that Jessie and Frank James, and the Younger Brothers, used to invade Northfield from Missouri in 1876. This sensitizes me to the possibility that they did not want to rob the bank, but rather were seeking new dining experiences, the foods of the Scandinavian and German cultures found here. It may be that their Missouri accents were just misunderstood by the natives of this community. An immigrant myself to Minnesota from Missouri at age 14, I well remember how I struggled to be understood by the locals.

I personally recommend going to a WH some time after 11 p.m. and before 5 a.m., then you order the biggest combo platter you can get--waffles, bacon, scrambled eggs, toast, potatoes, coffee, oj, and,of course, grits. If the table in your booth is not tacky with syrup spills, move on to the next booth until you find one that is.Otherwise, the atmosphere is all wrong.

Every time I go into a WH, I imagine Jesus at the griddle! Waffle House is probably the most popular "meditating over the rim of a coffee cup" franchise ever created.I am betting that all the monasteries and churches in the US don't even come close to the average annual number/facility of prayers, visions and meditative thoughts experienced at WH.

Bless their profit-seeking souls!

Waffle House at a Glance
A look at the Waffle House restaurant chain, by the numbers:

— Number of Waffle Houses: 1,497
— States with Waffle House restaurants: 25
— Eggs served by Waffle House in a year: 185 million
— Estimated total waffles served since 1955: 442,451,500
— Pounds of pecans that go into Waffle House waffles each year: 334,000
— Pounds of grits served by Waffle House each year: 3.2 million
— T-bone steaks served by Waffle House in a day: About 10,000
— Cups of coffee served each year by Waffle House: 95 million

In Waffle House lingo, how the restaurant’s 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