Waffle House
Une Vignette Américaine (An American Vignette)
I wrote this for SUM FLUX’s Waffle House event. Knowing that the submissions were likely to range from the horrifying to the liminal to the sublime, I made sure at least one entry reflected the truth of what it’s like to eat at Waffle House.
The redolent air welcomes you first, an invisible quilt of fragrance. Savory sausages and bacon. Warm maple syrup. And the signature perfume of every Waffle House everywhere: waffle batter. You slide to the right, careful not to block the door as you wait with your back to the tall, smoke-tinted windows that line the long front and one short side of the narrow building. Beside you, a couple steps forward to claim a pair of tall, empty stools at the counter.
A row of chairs, low and black with red seats. Their curved backs pressed to the windows. Same as you. Each is empty, waiting for waiters. Same as you. Signs proclaim them reserved for to-go orders. Custom says they’re yielded to old folks and harried moms.
Beyond, the short-side windows back-light three booths. All occupied. A four-top in the farthest corner, mid-order. The middle holds a trio engrossed in their food. In the window corner, a pair chat amongst empty Corelle plates and crumpled paper napkins.
The line builds behind you, left toward the TouchTunes jukebox, the bathrooms, and a pair of booths snuggled against the service area. Hard to tell how the people there are faring with their meals, but a server is reaching over the partition, refilling coffee with a chatty smile.
People shuffle by and a bony server with hollow eyes flicks her straw-colored braid toward the still-dirty table in the window corner. It’s now empty of chatters, plates, and garbage. You slide into the Formica-covered seat at the Formica-covered table and pull napkins from the chrome holder behind the Heinz ketchup bottle. A quick wipe, and your server is there with a rag. The leftover streaks clutch the laminated menu she sets before you.
You order what you always order, the only order worth getting, no matter the time of day or night, no matter the occasion: the All Star, coffee, orange juice. Two eggs, over easy. Sausage. Raisin toast with strawberry jelly. Grits, sweet with butter and sugar. And a pecan waffle.
Waffle House lives and dies by the quintessential American breakfast.
Nine people shift and slide in the sliver of space between the counter and the grill. Smiling, singing along with songs they’ve heard a million times when the diners don’t feed the playlist. No bumps, no drops, no clatter. Just movement and professional awareness as egg pans swirl and spatulas flip. Swift and purposeful, never rushing.
Thick steam caresses your face, rising from fresh coffee hot enough to boil sin clean and dark enough to suggest that’s how they brew it. You tilt the fluted glass sugar pourer and the granules disappear almost before they break the surface. Two mini creamers spill into the void-black, lift it to the color of aged oak. They do nothing to diminish the scalding heat.
Skeletal fingers deliver food-laden plates with the precise tunk-tunk-tak of Corelle against Formica. The familiar wafting welcome of interwoven scents and flavors, now personalized and hand-delivered.
Your empty coffee cup refills the instant it touches the table. Scarecrow magic, almost unnoticed, except a cheerful query for anything else.
Greasy sausage redolent with spice mops up the escaping spill of over-easy eggs and when both are gone the toast is there. Buttered cinnamon raisin bread sweetened more with strawberry jam, every bite a counter note to the symphony of savory seasonings.
The earthy grain and sweet butter flavor of perfect grits. They shiver in your spoon without slopping and nothing else in the world tastes like Sunday at Grandpa’s. No, not even the orange juice.
Spindle arm refills your cup, anything else, no rush. And the check settles. A magic carpet of carbon canary yellow. An escort to escape.
But first. And finally. And always. That pecan waffle. One inch thick with broad walls and deep wells. A texture that looks like a soft-touch paperback cover feels. A single cheap paper napkin keeps the syrup off your fingers. Woody sweet maple overwhelms even the coffee. An amber wash of promise in the thin fluorescent light.
Chewy, nutty, buttery, syrupy. Waffle House’s pecan waffle remains the only food in the world that has never disappointed you. Not once. Not ever. Not at 2 A.M. after breaking down set for the school play. Not at 11 P.M. after getting off shift at the steakhouse down the street. Not on Mother’s Day.
Magic carpet ride to the register. And there she is. Waffle House woman. Messy brunette bun and vinyl rubber flip-flops. Her faded black t-shirt says it all:
SMOKE BLUNT
SERVE CUNT
Outside, traffic hisses along the road. The slicing sun scatters against cars packed into the tiny parking lot. The light is harsh. Angular. Early. You check the time. Your brain skips a step. What felt like all day inside was barely forty minutes outside.
Now I want an all star beeakfast
You’ve painted a delicious sound picture.