Waffle House

When you’ve been on the road for 6 hours and every place in Little Rock is still sleeping on a Sunday morning at 6 am; Stop at the waffle house. Food is served fresh, quick, right before your eyes if your seat is close enough. It’s a small place, don’t worry!
Our lovely waitress was very sweet and as welcoming as a waitress is that early in the morning.

Let me start off by saying that my friends and I, on a road trip from Santa Cruz, CA to the deep south and back, felt compelled to go to a Waffle House while in the south because of its being such a quintessentially southern restaurant. However, we also went because we knew it would be hilariously terrible.
It was almost midnight and my friends and I had begun our day driving from New Orleans, to Biloxi and had just entered Little Rock. In our famished state we looked upon the bright yellow waffle house sign in much the same way that someone dying of thirst in the middle of a desert looks upon an oasis.
Upon making our triumphal entrance into this most hallowed of southern establishments we were greeted by a rather depressing sight. The waitress was balancing helping customers with taking care of her baby daughter, her baby daddy was sitting in the corner yelling at her periodically, and the line cook looked like he wished he was dead. However, the waffles were something like $ 2.50 so I can’t really complain about the food or the prices, only the fact that the employees looked more miserable than just about anyone I had ever seen. Surprisingly though, the bacon was delicious. As such, the food was perfectly fine considering the price, time and location.
The bathroom, as other people have alluded to, was terrible though. The sink looked like it had been bashed off the wall only to be reattached at an odd angle. Oh, and it was filthy too. I probably helped clean the place by peeing there.
It was amazing. In a terrible and kind of depressing way.

It was Summer of 2008, and I had lost my job. I was driving from California to NY with my ex when I was passing through Little Rock, AR. I was getting a bit tired and decided that we should rest a lil’ bit before we continued our limitless drive.
We came across this Waffle House along the highway and immediately I remembered going there as a child with my whore mother and her crack addict boyfriend back in Georgia.
I decided to re-​live the awesome memory of my wonderful mother’s junkie boyfriend waiting for his dealer to arrive to my ex-​girl. Like most boyfriends today.
The moment we walked in, I knew we was in deep shit. I’ve been to virtually every projects in NY to LA, but Arkansas my friend is the scariest place on earth.
As we sat down, all I could instruct my ex to do was don’t make any eye contact and just look at the menu, and sit down and don’t move while I get my gun.
What made me panic was a group of 18 Neo-​Nazi members sitting and eating waffles talking about black folks. The fucked up part was that the cook was black, and he didn’t seem to mind. Now, Heavy, how would you know if they were Nazis’? I guess I was quick to judge or the fact that the jerk offs all had very subtle, yet enormous swastikas tatted on their little, racist heads.
Anyway, the waffles were good.
The end.

Stopped in with Andy P. for a bite on the way from Dallas to Memphis.
Nothing else in Little Rock appeared to be open, and a feeling of destiny seeped in as we landed in the parking lot. Andy covered the experience pretty well, but it bears repeating that never before has a restaurant staff greeted me with «What are you doing here?» and never will it happen again.
The food was better than you’d think, and the experience, priceless. Andy gave the waiter a well-​deserved big tip.
Ambiance: ²⁵⁄₂₅ stars
Food: ¹⁶⁄₂₆ stars
Service: ²²⁄₂₅ stars
Bathroom: didn’t use it, probably terrible
Probability of going back: 0% (once in a lifetime experience)

By now everyone should be familiar with what Waffle House is and does. Waffles, breakfast, famous for clogging America’s arteries by the variety of things you can top their hashbrowns with (cheese, onions, gravy, etc.). Perhaps the only person I know not familiar with Waffle House was my faithful and Long Island sheltered traveling companion Randy S. who thought Waffle House was a term like «Diner» meant to describe a category of restaurants and not just one chain. Well, that’s what happens when you grow up on Long Island, you get weird ideas.
We got into the Waffle House at about 10:30 on a Tuesday night. The entire staff was sitting in the parking lot smoking. That’s always a bonus when you hit a Waffle House, it really makes the experience that much better. They were like, «you guys drove a long way to get here» (I have Washington plates) I explained our situation and they were pretty affable about the whole thing.
Randy had never been, so I suggested the waffle and hashbrowns and he got both. So did I. And some bacon. It was up to the usual standards: yummy. The waffles are good and so are the hashbrowns.
I put a couple bucks in the Juke Box and played Barry White, Allman Brothers, Isley Brothers, Billy Joel and G’n’R. We left this WH happy and fueled up to head on to Memphis, where we would travel 7 stories in an elevator with a hooker talking to her pimp.
It was a great night and a good experience at the Waffle House.