hile visiting Florida’s Panhandle city Destin over several 70-degree days in mid-March, longtime Waffle House chairman Joe Rogers Jr. checked in on fry cooks, servers and managers at three of his 24-hour diners, all just steps from dunes, a sunset or a boardwalk. He coached his workers through some of the biggest crowds they’ve experienced in a year as hoards of spring breakers fresh off late nights of partying and flush with stimulus checks lined up for hash browns, bacon and eggs.
Few Waffle House locations have a drive-thru, which made the transition to takeout orders more challenging.It was a welcome relief for the iconic chain, after what was one of the most difficult times in the 66-year history of Waffle House. Sales have been up as much as 15% in the past few weeks, reversing a decline that began with the pandemic lockdown last March.estimates Waffle House’s 2020 sales were around $1 billion, after getting back to 90% of overall sales from 2019 by the fall.
A year ago, as the pandemic forced closures across the restaurant industry, things looked far less prosperous. While drive-through and delivery stalwarts like McDonald’s and Dominos thrived, breakfast chains like Dunkin and Horton’s were crushed when commuting was mostly halted, a blow that hit dine-in only Waffle House even harder: Sales dropped 70% in just a few weeks in March 2020, forcing Rogers to close 20% of its locations and furlough thousands of workers.
“People were cooped up,” says the outspoken conservative, who has publicly critiqued the lockdown orders that spread across the nation during the pandemic. But if any chain was set up to survive the coronavirus crisis, it was Waffle House, which operates at odds with most of its fast food peers. Waffle House is one of the few to have a stock ownership plan for hourly workers, which Rogers created decades ago, and similarly is one of the last chains left to eschew debt.
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