In-n-Out is another chain I know of that is privately owned, and I wonder how many similarities there off. Off-hand, I imagine not as much. I bet the chain is small enough that their ‘support networks’ are much denser. But in the other hand, whenever I’ve been able to identify a ‘manager-type’ at In-n-Out, they always seem to be as involved as everyone else.
An interesting fact is that disaster relief agencies use how quickly waffle house is back up and running as an indicator for how badly hit a region has been by some natural disaster (hurricane, flood etc) because their disaster preparedness is so good.
One quick way my wife and I use to judge any kind of restaurant or hotel is by watching the manager. We’ve consistently noticed in places where the manager is doing their job in addition to the day to day work, the place has great service and provides quality. We find often at the places we like best, high end or hole in the wall, the manager or owner is serving people, or cooking or generally getting things done.
The converse is also true. At places we get bad service, or bad food the manager is normally in one place bossing the troops.
In my experience Waffle houses don’t always have a managed. Sometimes late at night they only have a cook and one waiter.
A good manager should be able to fill in on any position, expo, cook, hostess, or helping waitstaff. The problem is they could get stuck at peak hours helping in the back and not seen very much.
I love eating at Waffle House and an always humbled by how hard the employees seem to work under what appears to be absolute chaos, but my order always comes quick and the cooking occurs right in front of you, so you can see everything is clean. It's crazy how there is a person who reads off the ticket and multiple cooks who immediately respond (all-star, bacon, drop hash brown covered, scrambled, waffle)
Every employee has well defined and actionable tasks that they just have to do (with redundancy in some key areas). As long as they do them everything works. This is what a well refined process looks like. Figuring that stuff out and keeping the process optimized is part of what those franchise fees pay for.
The article states that a manager at Waffle House starts out at “only” $45K. Most Waffle Houses are in the south. You can do ok making 45K a year.
Yes there were cases of racism at Waffle House and I think they addressed them pretty well on a corporate level. I’m Black and live in a very White part of town. I walk into some Waffle House’s playing country music in the juke box, with pickup trucks plastered with MAGA stickers and have always been treated well. I have found none of the stereo types to be true.
$45k is nice, but for a manager doing a job so hard that this article says they can "manage anything", it seems like they're woefully underpaid. With their skills, they should be able to command a lot more pay somewhere else.
If all of this is true, I'd expect to see more WH managers move to higher paying jobs and WH have a harder time finding qualified managers, meaning they'd be forced to pay more.
Apparently the article claims they could get $117k, which is a lot different. Even with some hefty exaggeration, that would mean they are indeed woefully underpaid.
If as the article claims they don’t overwork their employees and they work 40 hours a week, they may be doing a lot of different things but they aren’t “overworked”.
Coming from someone who spent years in hospitality this is 100% the right answer. I’ve since moved onto technology gigs but it’s very common to prove yourself in a much lower tiered position and move on.
Start at McDonald’s, move to Panera and receive a nice Quality of life bump, then move onto something even more stable and rewarding like Trader Joe’s or Costco.
The other side of this is those that are very capable but very deficient in other areas, they started working at Waffle House since they don’t fit into normal society as one would think of it and happen to land there. Since the barrier to break into these jobs is nonexistent they do find a “home” and lack the ability to ever grow or move on, for better or worse.
$45k is on par for restaurant managers, especially for a new managers. I worked in hospitality on and off for 7 years. Most managers were making about the same as teachers. GMs were likely in the $100k range for most large chains. Some GMs were managing partners and they owned a stake in the store they worked in. The downside is a lot of the pay was dependent on bonuses.
They post the rules up so everyone can read them and it's enforced on both sides of the counter. Anyone who has visited a Waffle House frequently knows even in a bad part of town it's the one place you can sit in an eat in peace.
That's not to say every one of them is perfect but over the years it's always been my go-to place for a meal no matter the time or day.
Reminds me of another place in the south - QuickTrip. No matter what part of the metro area that I am in, the people at QT are always efficient, friendly and no bars up to the counter as if they will be robbed.
I was a waiter on the night shift in a Baton Rouge Waffle House.
Adored my time there, learned a lot and made enough money to pursue my dream career.
Among them:
- You can be an asshole but as long as you follow protocol things will run smoothly. Had lots of arguments with cooks about whatever was happening, but if you stand in the right spot and call the orders correctly, and mark the plate the right way, your food came out when it was suppose to, the way it was suppose to.
- When it comes to increasing tips, Charm beats good service. At 2 am, all the drunk people enjoy chaos and jokes more than getting their orders correct.
- the person who decides when your food is served holds 100% of the power. If you’re going to be belligerent, you’re gonna wait to eat. If you’re gonna irritate the cooks, you’re gonna lose tips cause your food comes up last.
- security is only there for the appearance of safety. If a group of drunkards starts a brawl, the one hired hand isn’t going to stop them. Call the cops, clear out as many breakables and weapons as you can, and get the onlookers to stand back is the most you can do.
- Getting yelled isn’t as bad as you think it is. You can still operate in chaos if you follow your routine
- number one way to increase tips is volume, and the number one way to increase volume to your section is to wipe the table whenever they’re coming through the door.
> the person who decides when your food is served holds 100% of the power. If you’re going to be belligerent, you’re gonna wait to eat. If you’re gonna irritate the cooks, you’re gonna lose tips cause your food comes up last.
That works better for the customer (vs. the waiter) than for the waiter (vs. the cook). The customer has the leverage of leaving the place just as the food is served, never coming back, not leaving any tip, and/or writing scathing reviews for the restaurant. Almost none of this is useful to the waiter in the relationship with the cook. In some places even management avoids pissing off the cooks as they may be the most critical part of operating a restaurant business.
The problem with that reasoning is that the customer has a binary choice to make, to leave without food and have to repeat the process of finding an open restaurant and going through the process again. Add to that the fact that they already committed to a decision (the food they ordered), that they already waited for the food and it must be coming any minute now, and that it smells like food. Chances are most people would stay[0].
On the restaurant's side the decision is linear, they can judge how long they can make them wait.
I don't have data and you don't either, but I'm ready to bet no-one leaves for just waiting.
I never suggested they're perfect or that they'll even bring direct benefits to the customer but they are still at the customer's disposal and can server as leverage. A waiter has little recourse against the cook other than to find a way to make up or quit.
> the customer has a binary choice
This is all I was highlighting. The customer has a (relatively easy) choice compared to the waiter's choice against a cook.
I did leave at least once after waiting for about an hour for a regular dish, especially after seeing that everyone else at the tables around us were getting served. Whether this was an argument between the waiter and cook mattered less to me. Anecdotally, I know plenty of other people who also did it in similar situations. So while I don't know how widespread this is it's not just a viable measure, it's also plausible in practice.
And I'm never one to argue or be anything but nice to people that make and serve my food. After waiting for an hour the tip incentive for any of the staff is all but gone (they probably guess they won't get any) so the service level is less likely to suddenly shoot up. All you're doing is escalation of commitment [0]. I personally try to cut my losses when an evening already feels ruined. There's always a backup plan.
I think you're missing the point. The client has those options. Whether they choose to use them or not is a different matter. But they are all very effective. Especially the 3 where the "pain" is almost exclusively with the restaurant [%] and staff (no tip, not coming back, bad reviews). It's the last resort measures that are the most effective. They're still perfectly valid measures if they can give you leverage over the other party.
> Chances are most people would stay.
Chances are most people would tip even if their experience wasn't that great (saying this both as client and former waiter in a different life). But tipping is still a perfectly good leverage against bad service. Leverage isn't judged by how many people use it but how effective it is.
Unfortunately for the waiter there's little to no leverage in a conflict with the cook. I worked as one in my teens. We were the last in the food chain: arguing with the customers or cooks was terminal because the boss could not afford to lose either one over an ill-tempered waiter, especially when we were seen as "a dime a dozen".
[%] The measure of leaving when the food is served is not the most effective because in many run of the mill restaurants it just gets recycled in the kitchen. Not much is lost from the restaurant's perspective while the client may have lost more time. In some cases though where the dish can't be recycled it could come out of everyone's paycheck (cooks and waiters alike).
People don’t look at the reviews before going to the Waffle House. You don’t expect a five star experience. That’s not meant to be an insult to Waffle House. When you go in you know what to expect.
I would think it probably also subconsciously signals that someone is ready to serve that table quickly and getting you your food faster, as opposed to an equally clean table across the room with no staff near it.
Waffle Houses are notoriously dirty, especially late at night when the drunks come in. Whether or not you're part of the party scene you want a clean table to sit at. Seeing someone wipe down a table while you're walking through the door gives you some assurance that the table hasn't been vomited on in the past few minutes.
> Since she graduated from Harvard LAST YEAR... [emphasis added]
Pardon my skepticism, but a person with less than one year in the professional workforce can't be the standard of measure undergirding the claim "if you can manage a Waffle House, you can manage anything."
Was there more substance in the paywalled section that I missed?
Waffle House used to offer all Georgia Tech graduates a manager position. Not sure if they still do but they certainly did from the 70s until the 2000s.
54 comments
[ 2.6 ms ] story [ 86.6 ms ] threadSome details here https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1168860400319946752.html and elsewhere.
They clearly take planning seriously.
It is an interesting hagiography? of the chain
https://www.fullwsj.com/articles/if-you-can-manage-a-waffle-...
But point taken...
It doesn't always work, but this time archive.is did the trick for me.
The converse is also true. At places we get bad service, or bad food the manager is normally in one place bossing the troops.
A good manager should be able to fill in on any position, expo, cook, hostess, or helping waitstaff. The problem is they could get stuck at peak hours helping in the back and not seen very much.
There's a wicked smart method to the chaos.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/nickgray/378694469
Yes there were cases of racism at Waffle House and I think they addressed them pretty well on a corporate level. I’m Black and live in a very White part of town. I walk into some Waffle House’s playing country music in the juke box, with pickup trucks plastered with MAGA stickers and have always been treated well. I have found none of the stereo types to be true.
If all of this is true, I'd expect to see more WH managers move to higher paying jobs and WH have a harder time finding qualified managers, meaning they'd be forced to pay more.
Apparently the article claims they could get $117k, which is a lot different. Even with some hefty exaggeration, that would mean they are indeed woefully underpaid.
This ensures you have a pipeline of new managers when someone moves on, as well as benefiting from far more experience than hiring externally.
Furthermore, while there may be higher paying jobs in a nearby city, there certainly aren't in the same area.
There are Waffle Houses at the intersection of two state highways. Which is to say, places where they're the only business there.
Start at McDonald’s, move to Panera and receive a nice Quality of life bump, then move onto something even more stable and rewarding like Trader Joe’s or Costco.
The other side of this is those that are very capable but very deficient in other areas, they started working at Waffle House since they don’t fit into normal society as one would think of it and happen to land there. Since the barrier to break into these jobs is nonexistent they do find a “home” and lack the ability to ever grow or move on, for better or worse.
That's not to say every one of them is perfect but over the years it's always been my go-to place for a meal no matter the time or day.
Adored my time there, learned a lot and made enough money to pursue my dream career.
Among them: - You can be an asshole but as long as you follow protocol things will run smoothly. Had lots of arguments with cooks about whatever was happening, but if you stand in the right spot and call the orders correctly, and mark the plate the right way, your food came out when it was suppose to, the way it was suppose to.
- When it comes to increasing tips, Charm beats good service. At 2 am, all the drunk people enjoy chaos and jokes more than getting their orders correct.
- the person who decides when your food is served holds 100% of the power. If you’re going to be belligerent, you’re gonna wait to eat. If you’re gonna irritate the cooks, you’re gonna lose tips cause your food comes up last.
- security is only there for the appearance of safety. If a group of drunkards starts a brawl, the one hired hand isn’t going to stop them. Call the cops, clear out as many breakables and weapons as you can, and get the onlookers to stand back is the most you can do.
- Getting yelled isn’t as bad as you think it is. You can still operate in chaos if you follow your routine
- number one way to increase tips is volume, and the number one way to increase volume to your section is to wipe the table whenever they’re coming through the door.
That works better for the customer (vs. the waiter) than for the waiter (vs. the cook). The customer has the leverage of leaving the place just as the food is served, never coming back, not leaving any tip, and/or writing scathing reviews for the restaurant. Almost none of this is useful to the waiter in the relationship with the cook. In some places even management avoids pissing off the cooks as they may be the most critical part of operating a restaurant business.
On the restaurant's side the decision is linear, they can judge how long they can make them wait.
I don't have data and you don't either, but I'm ready to bet no-one leaves for just waiting.
[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escalation_of_commitment
I never suggested they're perfect or that they'll even bring direct benefits to the customer but they are still at the customer's disposal and can server as leverage. A waiter has little recourse against the cook other than to find a way to make up or quit.
> the customer has a binary choice
This is all I was highlighting. The customer has a (relatively easy) choice compared to the waiter's choice against a cook.
I did leave at least once after waiting for about an hour for a regular dish, especially after seeing that everyone else at the tables around us were getting served. Whether this was an argument between the waiter and cook mattered less to me. Anecdotally, I know plenty of other people who also did it in similar situations. So while I don't know how widespread this is it's not just a viable measure, it's also plausible in practice.
And I'm never one to argue or be anything but nice to people that make and serve my food. After waiting for an hour the tip incentive for any of the staff is all but gone (they probably guess they won't get any) so the service level is less likely to suddenly shoot up. All you're doing is escalation of commitment [0]. I personally try to cut my losses when an evening already feels ruined. There's always a backup plan.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escalation_of_commitment
> Chances are most people would stay.
Chances are most people would tip even if their experience wasn't that great (saying this both as client and former waiter in a different life). But tipping is still a perfectly good leverage against bad service. Leverage isn't judged by how many people use it but how effective it is.
Unfortunately for the waiter there's little to no leverage in a conflict with the cook. I worked as one in my teens. We were the last in the food chain: arguing with the customers or cooks was terminal because the boss could not afford to lose either one over an ill-tempered waiter, especially when we were seen as "a dime a dozen".
[%] The measure of leaving when the food is served is not the most effective because in many run of the mill restaurants it just gets recycled in the kitchen. Not much is lost from the restaurant's perspective while the client may have lost more time. In some cases though where the dish can't be recycled it could come out of everyone's paycheck (cooks and waiters alike).
Pardon my skepticism, but a person with less than one year in the professional workforce can't be the standard of measure undergirding the claim "if you can manage a Waffle House, you can manage anything."
Was there more substance in the paywalled section that I missed?
And three jobs in a year does seem a little high, even for tech.