Anthony Bourdain: “Is the Waffle House universally awesome?”

Sean Brock: “We have one choice for late night eating, and it’s the Waffle House. They create this environment where no matter how blitz you are or how normal you are, you are welcome and equally treated with an experience. It’s not just eating a plate of food…”

Bourdain: “You talk about it like it’s a magical, spiritual place.”

Brock: “It’s beyond a magical, spiritual place.”

Show: Anthony Bourdain: PARTS UNKNOWN

Season: 6

Episode: 4

Location: Charleston, South Carolina

Waffle House is universally awesome when the cameras are on. Bring around celebrities and superstars and you will see how glorious Waffle House appears in a plastic paradise. 

Unfortunately, life isn’t plastic, it’s actually purgatory. Especially when the hungry human in Hades starts to feel like barbecue. Afraid their environment will eat them whole. 

I’ve experienced that feeling while in Waffle House. It was one in Georgia. Atlanta to be exact. I was with a friend from Wisconsin who wanted a waffle after leaving Church between midnight and 1:30 am. 

I dropped acid seven hours prior and wasn’t in my right mind when I said: “You want the waffle, you pick the Waffle House.” 

Atlanta, Georgia has 37 Waffle Houses, more than any city in America. He could’ve picked one in Morrow, or Mount Zion, or Marietta, but he picked the one off of Clairmont. 

The scene we saw felt like it belonged in a horror film.  

There was a man sitting in a booth by the front door rewrapping bandages around his hand as if he was a surgeon. I couldn’t tell if he just got stabbed or was stabbed prior in the day, but the hand was surely wounded in battle. 

As he wrapped with an unbroken focus the man next to him cracked open a beer. Waffle House doesn't serve beer. Waffle House doesn’t serve alcohol. No one spoke as he took a thirst-quenching sip. 

There’s another man near them who isn’t sitting, but zig-zagging between customers awaiting their food. Although it’s 12 of us in this cramped restaurant, he continues to circle around like a shark taunting its prey. 

He has a limp so each step brings his upper torso lower to the ground as if he’s shoulder leaning. His right hand is buried so deep in his pants it appears that he’s reaching for his naked knee. 

And with each of his steps the handle of a gun flashed before our eyes. No one said a word to him. 

Then there was the man in all black. He was standing by the cashier yelling at his iPhone. I don’t know why he’s yelling but the vibrations from his voice felt threatening. As if he was calling a hit. 

I view these men as lions, and I am the gazelle that has stumbled into their den. 

My rational mind is telling me to leave. They haven’t noticed you yet. Turn around and go back to the car. 

I’m assuming my companion in purgatory sees what I see. 

I assume he knows, as I know, that we won’t be eating. That if we stay here, we will be eaten. 

But he walks forward, saying nothing. 

His graceful steps toward the cashier are unbothered. 

My friend, who I believe is seconds from becoming a meal for these men, has only one concern that reveals itself as he spoke:

“Can I have a double waffle, please?”

And at that moment I knew hell wasn’t a mental state, it was a Waffle House.  

by Yoh