Order up!

I happen to like waffles, so I support the people at Waffle House as they seek to serve our nation with pockmarked pancakes, bacon and eggs. You can't beat that for a morning chow-down.

And they are open 24/7/365, not just to sling the eats but also to operate a disaster preparedness center. That's right! The company is proud to tell you, they operate a storm center in “a real conference room converted for our crisis response” at their headquarters in Georgia.

“We have responded to hurricanes and the like for more than 30 years,” said Njeri Boss, vice president and Boss of food safety and public relations at Waffle House.

It was Hurricane Katrina in 2005 that led WH to augment their crisis management processes. They lost seven restaurants in that horrible storm, and another hundred were damaged enough to be shut down for some time, but as things got back on track down south, people flocked to Waffle House because they were open!

Katrina taught the company to prepare for disastrous storms. They developed disaster prep manuals for all their locations, and added portable generators and mobile command centers to keep their restaurants open when bad storms struck.

And people noticed! The public, and government emergency agencies, started keeping an eye on WH operations. To make it all easy for all to understand, management set up a color-coded system - and made the status of all restaurants available online - through the “Waffle House Index.”

There are three color-coded levels on the index:

🟩 Green means a full menu is available, lights are on, and any damage in the area is limited.

🟨  Yellow indicates a limited menu, what power the restaurant has is from a generator, and food supplies are not optimum.

🟥 Red means the restaurant is closed, there being severe damage or unsafe conditions in the area.

Government agencies have come to regard this index as an accurate gauge of how things are in any county or municipality.

I tell you, there is nothing like American commerce and cuisine! 

I'll have a classic waffle, a slice of country ham, eggs over easy, and hominy* grits, please!

*at least three or four hundred