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Short Stuff: Waffle House Index · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the short Stuff. I'm Josh, and
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: there's Chuck and Jerry's here too, sitting in for Dave,
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: and we're just cooking it up here. It's stuff you
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: should know.
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: That's right.
• 0:14
  Speaker 3: We've talked about waffle House here and there quite a
• 0:16
  Speaker 3: bit over the years, and I was gonna do a
• 0:18
  Speaker 3: full waffle House episode that was in the pipeline.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: Maybe still, but maybe not. After this.
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: I feel like we've taken a pretty good chunk out
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: of what would have been a waffle House episode. Agreed, Well,
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: because we're talking about the waffle House Index, and yes,
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: there's plenty of interesting stuff about the waffle House, but
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: I would argue that the waffle House Index is possibly
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: the most interesting thing about the chain. Of what everyone
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: in the South or Southeast knows is twenty four to
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: seven restaurants that are legendary for staying open against all odds.
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: That's right.
• 0:55
  Speaker 3: And a lot of restaurants and chains may claim to
• 0:57
  Speaker 3: be open three hundred and sixty five days a year,
• 1:00
  Speaker 3: and they, you know, a lot of them are in general,
• 1:03
  Speaker 3: but the waffle House in particular prides itself and has
• 1:06
  Speaker 3: taken great, great, great efforts to really stay open like
• 1:11
  Speaker 3: it's got to be.
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: Ah.
• 1:14
  Speaker 3: And as you'll see with the waffle House index, if
• 1:16
  Speaker 3: the a waffle house is closed, that is that is
• 1:19
  Speaker 3: very bad news for the area that that places in
• 1:21
  Speaker 3: because they stay open at all costs.
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And they don't just stay open at all costs
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: because they couldn't care less about their staff and they're
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: just greedy and want to make money. This is actually
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: like buy design. There's a corporate many ideology, and they
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: work sure that the waffle house should serve as essentially
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: a community center during disasters. And during normal times they're
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: just waffle houses. But during a natural disaster in particular,
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: you you should just stand back and watch them go
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: because they have actual plans that the company has developed
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: to figure out how to stay open to serve the community.
• 2:04
  Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure, we're gonna talk about a few of
• 2:07
  Speaker 3: them here and there. One of them is they have
• 2:09
  Speaker 3: a limited menu and it's not like, oh, what do
• 2:11
  Speaker 3: we have on hand? It's like, all right, we're going
• 2:14
  Speaker 3: to you know, I don't know what they call it
• 2:16
  Speaker 3: on the inside, but let's just say like we're going
• 2:18
  Speaker 3: to to plan B or something, and that means we're
• 2:22
  Speaker 3: switching to the official limited menu when there are food shortages,
• 2:26
  Speaker 3: when the power's out and stuff like that. Most I
• 2:30
  Speaker 3: don't think all of them do at this point, but
• 2:32
  Speaker 3: most of them, and I'm sure they want to have
• 2:34
  Speaker 3: them all on backup generators.
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: That's been a thing for a while.
• 2:38
  Speaker 3: So if you, you know, if the power's out, you
• 2:40
  Speaker 3: can still probably go to a waffle house and not
• 2:44
  Speaker 3: only get power, but you know, get a hot meal.
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, whether you're like somebody whose house just got ravaged
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: or a first responder helping people whose house just got ravaged.
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: Yes, we're just hungry.
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: It's a really important thing that you just totally overlook,
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: Like if your kitchen is gone and all of the
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: other restaurants in town are shut down, having a waffle
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: house open is a really really big deal. And they
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: have like actual what are called waffle house jump teams
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: that can show up parashooters. They do parachute in, uh
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: and I hope they have better names for these things
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: than play and be. I hope it's more like playing
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: Dark Star or playing Sorcerers Sleeve or something like that. Okay,
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: better than playing be. But they parachute in, like you said,
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: and they will open a waffle house faster than you
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: can say waffle house.
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah that's right.
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: Wait, hold on, uh faster than you can say scattered, covered,
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: smother and chunks.
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: I know I have asked you how you got yours?
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: How do you get yours? Yours? Oh you do so chunked?
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: Is ham? Right?
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah? I don't eat ham anymore, but I haven't been
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: to a waffle house since I stopped eating ham. So yes,
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: I always got it with ham, cheese and and sauted onions.
• 4:02
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think I told. I mean, I just get
• 4:04
  Speaker 3: mine straight up. I'm the weirdo that gets unadorned hash
• 4:08
  Speaker 3: browns at waffle house. But I do get a double
• 4:10
  Speaker 3: order because I just two of those. One isn't enough. Yeah,
• 4:13
  Speaker 3: I agreed, But I don't go anymore. I think I
• 4:17
  Speaker 3: mentioned on an episode last time I went. It was
• 4:19
  Speaker 3: actually with Hodgman after he went camping with a group
• 4:23
  Speaker 3: a group of dudes. Here on the way out, I
• 4:25
  Speaker 3: was like, we're stopping at waffle house, right, and he went, oh, yeah, yeah.
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: We definitely are.
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: And you don't go anymore.
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: Now, I mean, that was the only time I've been
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: in years.
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: I see, I got you. I thought you were you
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: don't want to replace that memory with another.
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: Oh no, no, no, no, no, that was just the year
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: and a half ago.
• 4:42
  Speaker 3: But I just it's just, you know, I went a
• 4:44
  Speaker 3: lot in college, like you know, late night after the bars.
• 4:47
  Speaker 3: But you know, you grow up a little bit and
• 4:48
  Speaker 3: you realize you can't eat waffle House every week.
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: It's true.
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: It's a sad realization. Everybody. It's coming your way though,
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: if you're young.
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: Yep, So I said, we took a break and come
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: back and talk more about this wall Playhouse index and
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: what it is and where it came from.
• 5:02
  Speaker 4: All right, let's do it.
• 5:37
  Speaker 3: So you know, we talked about waffle House being set
• 5:39
  Speaker 3: up with generators and jump teams and limited menus. They
• 5:42
  Speaker 3: also have temporary warehouses where they can store stuff, you know,
• 5:47
  Speaker 3: on that limited menu at least. And this all started
• 5:51
  Speaker 3: after Hurricane Katrina in two thousand and five. I think
• 5:55
  Speaker 3: seven of the restaurants were completely destroyed, very sadly. A
• 5:58
  Speaker 3: hundred of them shut down, but they got up and
• 6:01
  Speaker 3: running again very very fast, and the company basically decided like, hey,
• 6:07
  Speaker 3: this is such a valuable thing. We need to come
• 6:09
  Speaker 3: up with that official plan, like a literal book of
• 6:12
  Speaker 3: how to open as quickly as possible during an emergency,
• 6:16
  Speaker 3: or stay open during an emergency.
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. Not only did they come up with
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: the book, that's when they figured out, Okay, what kind
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: of limited menu can we come up with? How can
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: we store it? They identified like local temporary food storage
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: they could use. That was you know, I'm sure central
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: to a number of waffle Houses, not one for each one,
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: and we're just basically ready. It's called disaster preparedness. I
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: had no idea about this. I really just thought waffle
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: House just stayed out a state open just out of
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: sheer will until I researched this. But they have a
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: disaster preparedness plan, and apparently other companies do in the
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: United States too, like Lows and Home Depot will because
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: people need lumber and shovels and hammers and stuff because
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: there's blue away and they need to rebuild, and probably
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: also more like generators and gas cans and so on
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: and so forth. I don't know why I'm staying on
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: this list, but waffle House isn't the only one. But
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: they're just part of a handful of companies who've essentially
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: made themselves like de facto essential operations for post disaster
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: preparedness stuff.
• 7:26
  Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure, which leads us finally to the waffle
• 7:29
  Speaker 3: House Index, which is a pretty unique thing. It was
• 7:33
  Speaker 3: the brainchild of a guy named Craig Fugate who was
• 7:37
  Speaker 3: the FEMA administrator back in the early twenty tens, and
• 7:42
  Speaker 3: he had that position after the Joplin tornado of twenty
• 7:46
  Speaker 3: eleven in May of that year, and he had kind
• 7:49
  Speaker 3: of had this idea for a little while because he
• 7:52
  Speaker 3: had noticed after various hurricanes at waffle house was one of,
• 7:56
  Speaker 3: if not the only thing open, And he started to
• 7:58
  Speaker 3: notice this sort of trend like, hey, your community doesn't
• 8:01
  Speaker 3: have water.
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: You don't have power, yet the waffle house was open.
• 8:04
  Speaker 3: And he started looking at maps and realized that, like, hey,
• 8:08
  Speaker 3: if you actually look at where the weather hit the
• 8:12
  Speaker 3: hardest and the damage was the most severe, you can
• 8:16
  Speaker 3: kind of rate that according to whether or not that
• 8:19
  Speaker 3: waffle house is either open, closed, or serving a full menu,
• 8:23
  Speaker 3: limited menu, and just how they're doing. And he really,
• 8:26
  Speaker 3: like that was sort of like the light bulb above
• 8:30
  Speaker 3: the head moment when he said this could be a
• 8:32
  Speaker 3: real thing. The waffle House Index could really help us out.
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And I mean it's as simple as like calling
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: the local waffle house in Tampa after a hurricane just
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: passed through and saying, are you guys still open? And
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: if they don't answer the phone, there's trouble in that community.
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: And he was saying, like, that's where FEMA should start
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: sending its people first, because that's as bad as it gets.
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: If the waffle house isn't open and they actually color
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: coded it, there's green as the best part of the index.
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: It means that your waffle house is totally fine. Maybe
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: there's like a cracked window, but everything else is good
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: and everyone in the community can come there. Yellow has
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: a limited menu and they're probably using a generator. And
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: then red is like it's closed. The waffle house is
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: toast come here because this is the community that's hardest hit.
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: That's how like dedicated waffle house is to staying open
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: that if they're closed, FEMA knows that that's where you
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: should go first.
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 9:32
  Speaker 3: Absolutely, you don't get the red index a lot, but
• 9:37
  Speaker 3: again if you do, then that's you know, that's the
• 9:39
  Speaker 3: really bad sign. If you know they know a hurricane
• 9:43
  Speaker 3: or something like that is coming and they like there's
• 9:47
  Speaker 3: evacuation orders and stuff like that. You you know, if
• 9:51
  Speaker 3: it's mandatory. A waffle house might close, but the very
• 9:55
  Speaker 3: first chance they get to open that thing up, they're
• 9:57
  Speaker 3: going to open it back up.
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah. There's this really great story I read on the
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: waffle house blog welled in North Carolina back in twenty eleven.
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: Hurricane Irene passed through there and the waffle house, the
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: local waffle house lost its power, but the gas was
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: still going to the grill, and so it's the waffle
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: house stayed open and was cooking for people as long
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: as it was light enough for them to see what
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: they were doing. And then it just became too dark
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: to keep going. They closed and then opened at first
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: light at dawn.
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 10:30
  Speaker 3: I loved that story, but I was so ready when
• 10:32
  Speaker 3: I was reading it to hear they cooked by candlelight
• 10:35
  Speaker 3: through the night.
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Sorry, sorry, Chuck.
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: I didn't say I expected them to.
• 10:40
  Speaker 3: I just that would have been even more amazing, but
• 10:43
  Speaker 3: maybe also dangerous, so that that might have had something
• 10:45
  Speaker 3: to do with it, or maybe they.
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: Just didn't have candles. And then the waffle house employee,
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: they're the manual afterward, it was like, by candles. Make
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: sure you of planting candles. We learned from Hurricane Irene.
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: I looked up by the way, I tried to find
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: that they have.
• 10:59
  Speaker 3: A a mobile emergency What is it.
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: Like a it's like an RV, like a command center.
• 11:08
  Speaker 3: Yeah, but the only thing I could find looked like
• 11:11
  Speaker 3: a food truck.
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: Oh is that right? Yeah?
• 11:14
  Speaker 3: I mean I tried to find a picture and everything.
• 11:16
  Speaker 3: It just kept showing me this food truck, and I
• 11:19
  Speaker 3: couldn't When it was called the command center, I was like,
• 11:21
  Speaker 3: is it dressed to look like a waffle house? Because
• 11:24
  Speaker 3: it looks like a little tiny waffle house, does it?
• 11:26
  Speaker 3: And is there like communications inside or are they showing
• 11:31
  Speaker 3: up and cooking like I couldn't. I couldn't figure that
• 11:33
  Speaker 3: part out.
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: If it is a food truck though, there's one hundred
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: percent chance that they're serving mpanjadas right, even from the
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: waffle house food truck. But they have a great nickname
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: for it though, at least.
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: Uh yeah, what was from Stripes? What would they call it?
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: The EM fifty, which is apparently the assault vehicle that
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: Bill Murray drives in Stripes? Was the EM fifty. I
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: never got into that.
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: Movie, like liked it or saw it all the way
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: through it?
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: Saw it all the way through?
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: Oh, Stripes is great.
• 12:02
  Speaker 3: I think it's a movie in two parts, so the
• 12:05
  Speaker 3: first half is a lot better than when they.
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: Go on the mission in the RV.
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: Gotcha. Okay, but you.
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: Know, not the best movie in the world. But I
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: love Harold Ramis.
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: Well, yeah, of course, I feel like it might have
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: just been a couple of years ahead of me. When
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: I was younger, I was more a meat for guy.
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean that stuff.
• 12:25
  Speaker 3: I wouldn't allowed to watch any of that at the time,
• 12:27
  Speaker 3: so I had to sneak it a little later.
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I don't know how I was allowed to watch
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: Meatballs because I was never allowed to watch Porky's or
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: just about anything. My mom wouldn't even let me watch
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: Sanford and Son. Because she thought Red Fox is a
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: dirty old man.
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: Oh interesting, that's funny.
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well it wasn't that funny. When you're a kid
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: and you want to watch Sanford and Son, it's not
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: funny at all.
• 12:48
  Speaker 3: I did learned two things about your mom this week.
• 12:50
  Speaker 3: That and that she played the banjo, which just floors
• 12:53
  Speaker 3: me how cool that is.
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: She loved playing the banjo. I love that, And I
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: love the waffle House index and waffle House didn't even
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: sponsor this. Everybody. That's just how impressed we are with
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: the waffle House Index. I always thought it was just
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: some fooling around pop culture thing. Nope, it's a real thing.
• 13:10
  Speaker 3: Yeah, if you've never been, if you're ever in the South,
• 13:12
  Speaker 3: go check out a waffle house and the coolest, most awesome,
• 13:15
  Speaker 3: fun people work there. And you might be able to
• 13:17
  Speaker 3: get into a fistfight with Kid Rock.
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: You never know, Yeah, there's a pretty good chance you will.
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: Short Stuff is out.
• 13:27
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• 13:30
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• 13:33
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