Waffle House – Atlanta

Waffle House – Atlanta – Breakfast

“Waffle House” seemed to be the buzz word the weekend of the uNAVSA conference in Atlanta. Here as Vietnamese American students assembled from across the nation to the cultural capital of the Dirty South, everyone was mentioning how they “gotta try Waffle House”, blah blah blah.

Waffle House, a place my friend Emery once described as your “typical greasy spoon” joint, and added along an advisory “don’t go there, man”. I should have taken his advice. I’ve had Waffle House before and was not very impressed from my previous encounters with the uniformly hole-in-the-wall establishment, though noting that they do have some good cheap hash brown dishes. But other than that, not much would make me want to go back there into that yellow topped hole to the netherworld of late night eats.

But something intrigued me about it here in Atlanta, maybe since this city was the birthplace for the whole Waffle House franchise and I felt the need to pay my respects on my visit here to the home of the Waffle House. Maybe I wanted to see what all the fuss was about. Maybe I just wanted to sober up after a late night out at the club and Waffle House was the only thing open near the hotel.

Whatever the case may have been, there we were inside the Waffle House, sitting on the cramped counter looking over our laminated menus. On this late night all around us, all sorts of drunken walks of life stumbled clumsily around us, stammering their orders with their drunken slurs. The place felt slightly dirty, greasy smoke from the griddles perfuming the air, confusing your senses and making it feel even more surreal than it already is in this ugly, ugly place.

Inside the wondrous caverns of the Waffle House

Minh isn’t feeling too well at this point in the night

The waitress who came to us was brisk but kindly. We gave her our orders and soon enough they arrived.

I ordered a hash brown with cheese as well as strawberry waffles. Both were okay but indeed the grease was overwhelming for my tastes, causing me to not enjoy them as much as I could have. But we were hungry.

Hash browns at Waffle House

Bacon strips nom nom nom

Waffle with strawberry goo

Waffle a la Waffle House

My brother Phil from the University of Florida chowing down

Regretful chomp.

I think it made me feel a little sick and maybe made me feel more drunk afterwards than before coming in to the place. C’est la vie, this is what you risk when you gamble away your night at the Waffle House.

Tasty Chomps Rating!!
2 out of 5 regretful chomps