Waffle House

Information about myself: I am a retired restaurant owner/manager/supervisor with over forty-five years' experience working for companies like Great Southern, Mrs. Winners, Wendy’s, and so on as well as owning and operating two of my own restaurants. I have been a customer of Waffle House for nearly fifty years… mostly in Jackson Tennessee but also in Memphis, Nashville and even in other states while there on vacation or business. Being such a long-time customer of yours, I am intimately familiar with your standards and practices and your normal operating ideas/practices. Obviously, being such a long-time customer, I enjoy both the food and the atmosphere of your restaurants.

There have been both good and some ‘not’ so good experiences at your restaurants over the long years, but obviously more good than not-so-good because I’ve always come back to eat there (as a restaurant manager/supervisor/owner I understand things cannot ALWAYS be perfect so am usually forgiving of ‘bad’ days and give second chances which almost always works out to be better when I came back for another visit.)

However, I doubt I will be back over ‘this’ particular incident.

My wife is terminally ill and in Jackson General Hospital, I stayed with her all day 10/8/2022, leaving the hospital very late, around 1:00 or so AM. I was hungry and needed some coffee for the long drive home… So, I stopped in at the South Jackson Waffle House location. Pulling into the parking lot I notices a few cars/late night customers and also a small, white-colored ‘Church’ bus that had also just pulled in, with maybe a dozen or so people getting out and heading for the restaurant’s entrance. I parked and got out, following them inside.

The booths where I normally sit were taken, so, being a single person I took a seat at the counter, about fourth stool to the left of the register (directly in front of the behind-the-bar cooking grill.) Immediately I spotted trouble. The cook, an older black fellow, was mouthing off to and messing with one of the waitresses… a white woman, maybe in her late 20’s/early 30’s? Anyway, he kept messing with her talking trash, saying stuff like ‘You girls ain’t doin’ [censored] around here… “I” am doing all the work!’ There was a black guy at the far right/end of the counter that kept repeating what the cook was saying…. The two obviously knew one another.

The girl/waitress here was frantically trying to get food out and had her hands full of plates of food telling the cook she desperately needed the bacon he was messing with (half-assed cooking…he was just fooling around with her bacon, obviously holding it back from the plates just to ‘mess with her.’) Finally, he THREW the bacon on her plates… getting it into the eggs on her plate and even breaking some of it. This plainly upset the girl as she was merely trying to serve good food and she asked him ‘not’ to do that and he laughed and told her not to be ‘stressing out’ over stuff like that.

She took the food as she had little choice in the manner and delivered it to her customers.

Getting them waited on, she began taking orders from the church folk that had come in (from the bus.) The Cook JUST KEPT mouthing off about her, running her down, saying ugly stuff about her and with his pal at the bar joining in to agree with him, both of them talking loud enough for EVERYONE in the restaurant to hear…. Especially the waitress trying to take the customers orders.

Every time the waitress would come anywhere near the cooking area the cook would ‘get in her way/partially block’ her movements and say crap to her… SHE MUST HAVE NICELY ASKED HIM TO STOP …. TEN TIMES OR MORE!

Yet despite her asking him to stop and trying to wait on her customers… he (the cook) and his buddy at the bar, continued to harass/bother her.

She continued to ‘try’ and be cool and wait on the customers.

I don’t know this waitress, it was the first time I’d ever seen her… but I must give her five star kudos for putting up with that verbal (and somewhat physical…I.E. the blocking of her movements by the cook) assault.

To make matters worse… the cook then started yelling at the customers saying stull like, ‘She ain’t doin’ her job so just tell me what you want and I’ll throw it down for you! (Obviously saying he would by-pass the order process and cook their food directly without a ticket… as former owner/manager/supervisor I can only IMAGINE what a hellish mess that would have created for the waitress as she tried to figure out ‘who had what’ and ‘who owed what money for what food.’ What a nightmare!

I didn’t like what was going on… and it was also obviously upsetting the church group too. One couple sitting next to me plainly were upset and trying to ignore the cook as he kept yelling at them to ‘give him their order and he’d throw it down’. I heard the man/customer say, ‘what is going on here?’ with him plainly not liking the situation.

Not getting any results from his yelling to the bar and low table customers… the cook then turned to me, demanding my order so he could ‘throw it down’ (obviously meaning cook it without a ticket or order from the waitress.) And all the while both and his bar buddy continued to beret and put down the waitress and talk crap about her.

I told that cook FIVE TIMES that I would wait for the waitress to TAKE MY ORDER (the way it’s ‘supposed’ to be done. And yet this fool continued to yell at me for my order. Jeez!

I was too tired from a long day spent with my sick wife to put up with this crap… I just walked out.

The next day, the 9th, I was going ‘back’ to the hospital to see my wife and stopped in again there at the South Jackson Waffle House for lunch. The manager, a middle-aged black lady that I have know for over fifteen years, was there. The restaurant was pretty busy but she knew what I wanted (country ham plate) and went ahead and called out my order to the cook and brought me coffee. We spoke cordially as I said I have known the woman for a very long time and had always respected her work ethics…

As I was eating at the bar, she came over to wash/rinse some dirty dishes and thinking about what had gone on there the night before I thought maybe I should give her a ‘heads up’ about possible trouble brewing…. Harassment charges (these days) are/can be a LOT of trouble! I asked her could I speak with her a second and tell her something. She nodded as she continued to wash the dishes and said, ‘Sure.’

This is what I said;

“Just wanted to tell you that I stopped by her last night and the place was hopping with a several customers and a church bus. The guy cooking was messing with one of the waitresses and just kept on even though she must have asked him to stop about ten times.”

…I never got to say anything else… Immediately this woman/manager BLOWED up, and with an ugly scowl on her face began to defend the cook saying stuff like… “well, that girl caused us to lose that bus as they all walked out!’ And stuff like that.

I was/am very confused by the manager’s ugly reaction! I don’t know whether the girl caused them to walk out or not because as when ‘I’ left they were still there… however, I PERSONALLY know that several of them were upset over the cooks ugly cursing/talking about the waitress and yelling at them to ‘give him’ their order so he could ‘throw it down’. So — If I had to guess why they walked out, it could be or might have been because of the cook and his ugly actions.

Anyway… to continue, the manager was PISSED over the simple report/words I had told her… I mean PISSED. With an ugly scowl on her face and glaring at me like some monster from hell she called me a liar to my face! Imagine my surprise at getting this sort of ugly reaction from a girl I had know for MANY years and considered a good person/worker! Imagine my surprise at getting this sort of ugly reaction over a simple ‘report’ about the harassment I had seen! My God, as a former manager/supervisor/owner I loved it when people/customers told me important things I NEEDED to know about what went on when I wasn’t there!

Her nasty and SUPER NEGATIVE reaction to such a simple report was mind-boggling to me.

I told her, “Look, I’m sorry if I upset you but I was trying to help you out by letting you know what went on.”

She was so angry she was physically shaking… and continued to call me a liar.

Knowing any further conversation was useless, and as her reaction (especially calling me a liar) was making me mad too, I knew it was time to go so I left my half-eaten ham plate and got up to pay and leave. At this point this manager again called me a liar, and then to my complete surprise…. CALLED ME A RACIST!

Good Lord… this was incredible! I had mentioned no color of anybody when I had reported what had happened the night before. Yeah, she KNEW the cook was black, she KNEW the waitress was white… as did I, of course, but I’d made NO reference (and never have) to skin color. I am neither prejudiced or a racist. As a past employer hiring MANY MANY people over the long years, I’d had both good (and sometimes bad) people of all skin colors/nationalities, I respected and still do, them ALL. And this woman KNEW that… as I’d said she’d known me as a good and friendly customer for MANY long years.

For her to call me a liar was bad enough. Especially right out in front of the entire restaurant, customers and all. But for her to then also call me a Racist… again right out in front of everyone… was appalling! It’s intolerable. It’s unforgiveable.

I will be plain… I paid my bill and told her that I would not be back. She yelled at me and told me to ‘get out, and not come back!’ At this point, very upset I told her to ‘go to hell’ and walked out. She was still yelling at me as I walked out the door and I could hear her yelling even once I was outside the building.

Of course I will never return to that restaurant, a place I’ve eaten at (usually twice a week) since it was built many years ago. Of course I’m doubtful if I’ll ever eat at a Waffle House again as this has seriously left a ‘bad taste’ in my mouth for the company. This manager is OUT OF CONTROL, and now that I look back on it the signs have been obvious for a long time. I remember back a few months ago when I stopped there and there was only a couple of very young (and brand new) employees there and the place was very busy and they were trying hard to cope… when I asked them where the other workers were, the young waitress told me that the manager had ‘let them all off’ to go to a funeral. I thought, ‘doh!’ That sounds crazy… but shrugged it off. Now I see it that it was a sign that the manager was ‘out of control’. You don’t LEAVE unexperienced employees by themselves to let everyone else off to go anywhere…even a funeral! That’s crazy!

Anyway… I have loved and respected the Waffle House brand for many, many years… At this point you can likely imagine why I’ll likely NEVER eat there or have a good word to say about the place, again. As the old saying goes… ‘a happy customer may only tell a few of his family friends about a good place… but an unhappy customer will tell EVERYBODY about a bad place.’ Unfortunately, at this point I am a VERY unhappy customer!

I have no doubt that this manager will lie if approached about both the cook’s actions and her own… I however am telling the entire truth; you can believe me or not. But I’ll go this far… if honesty is in question, I’m willing to PAY FOR MY OWN lie detector report IF you would (the company) pay for the cooks AND THE MANAGER’s lie detector’s reports. I’m not joking… this woman called me a liar to my face, insulted me while I was being friendly and ‘trying’ to help her, and finally totally pissed me off by insulting calling me a racist to my face and in front of store employees and customers! You bet I’m willing to back up everything I’VE TOLD YOU here today by putting my money where my mouth is and be willing to spend my own money with a lie detector report to prove my truth.

I don’t personally know that young waitress… but no matter a good or a bad waitress she was ‘trying’ to do her job that night I saw her… that damned cook wouldn’t let her, and surely, she didn’t deserve his harassment. And neither did I when reporting it to the store manager the next day. My God, that was just CRAZY!

Surely you folks don’t condone/put up with both the harassment of a female worker… nor the harassment/verbal assault of a good customer of many long years.

Or so I would think…