EXCLUSIVE - Waffle House grill cook cheat sheet

This is a photograph of a Waffle House grill cook's cheat sheet.

The photographs indicate the way in which a cook marks his orders. These secret plate markers allow a Waffle House cook to simultaneously prepare multiple customer orders at once.

Let me give you an example. If I were to order three scrambled eggs, dry wheat toast, and hash browns, the waitress would face the grill and yell out loud - "Mark: Triple scrambled dry wheat plate."

The cook would then quickly take a large dinner plate, turn it sideways, and place a tub of jelly upside down at the six o'clock position.

The six o'clock position indicates scrambled eggs, and the jelly upside down means wheat toast. I am not sure how to mark "dry" for the toast, or how to indicate hash browns versus grits.

This chart explains why I often get a packet of mayonnaise with my grilled chicken plate.

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Comments

dalasv says:

Thanks for this amazing find!
Posted 34 months ago. ( permalink )

Maigh says:

Let me know when you find the recipe for the waffle batter.
Posted 33 months ago. ( permalink )

TheRogue says:

Now that's a great discovery! I wish they had Waffle Houses here in California. I miss them.
Posted 33 months ago. ( permalink )

michaelbrutsch [deleted] says:

@TheRogue: At least you've got Chicken And Waffles!
Posted 33 months ago. ( permalink )

dcecil805 says:

Saw this on BoingBoing. Amazing!
Posted 33 months ago. ( permalink )

{Pamphile} says:

Saw it on BoingBoing as well. What a neat system!!
Posted 33 months ago. ( permalink )

hi_im_monkey says:

putting manhandled packets of condiments on the supposedly clean plate before plating the entree (i use the term entree very loosly here) sounds more than a bit unsanitary to me.
Posted 33 months ago. ( permalink )

NautArch says:

monkey...you're kidding, right? It's Waffle House. You're not going there to get sanitary food.
Posted 33 months ago. ( permalink )

billolen says:

Brilliant, thanks for posting!
Posted 33 months ago. ( permalink )

tanjatiziana says:

insane.
Posted 33 months ago. ( permalink )

Editz says:

It won't be much longer before you have a simple LCD display with an image of what the finished order's supposed to look like. Forget all the jelly packet shorthand stuff.
Posted 33 months ago. ( permalink )

Compwalla says:

Um, Waffle House is a grease pit, not a surgical operatory. The cook's hands are probably the cleanest things in the joint.
Posted 33 months ago. ( permalink )

edrabbit says:

The secrets of Waffle House! I always love sitting and listening to orders get yelled across the kitchen. Why oh why can't they open Waffle Houses in California? I miss them so.
re-blogged
Posted 33 months ago. ( permalink )

ACLerok says:

Wow. That is really something else.
Posted 33 months ago. ( permalink )

psylux says:

Boing boing said something about coming here. What's going on?
Posted 33 months ago. ( permalink )

diet_coke_ca says:

Who works here in this Waffle House, Peaches? Who fold them omelets, who turn them sausages, who clean up the mess, and who just plain work here... just breathin' in the grease fumes?

Somebody who don't work here made them rules. Them rules ain't for us. We the ones who make up them rules. We makin' our own rules, every day. Ain't that right, Homer?
Posted 33 months ago. ( permalink )

CapnMarrrrk [deleted] says:

How cool! I am totally baffled by the pickle placement though. What if the plate somehow gets rotated? Does the layering help just in case?

My mind is blown, as is my bowels if I eat at Awful House.

Say it 3 times quick: Awful Waffle, Awful Waffle, Awful Waffle.
Posted 33 months ago. ( permalink )

Prehensile Eye says:

gotta love codes.
Posted 33 months ago. ( permalink )

four12 says:

Friends don't let friends eat at Waffle House.
Posted 33 months ago. ( permalink )

nickgraywfu says:

For the record, you CAN eat healthy at Waffle House! I have eaten there every morning for over a year and my BFI (Body Fat Index) is under 15%. My standard meal is steamed hashbrowns, a grilled chicken breast, and water with no ice (total $4.39 plus tax).
Posted 33 months ago. ( permalink )

chrisscott says:

I always thought they only hired savants for cooks. So dissapointed now...
Posted 33 months ago. ( permalink )

Spatch says:

Once we suss out the code for dry white toast, we can next work on the code for four fried chickens and a coke.

This is absolutely fascinating. Soda jerks at fountains used to have their own lingo; Waffle House short-order cooks have their own signal system. I love it.
Posted 33 months ago. ( permalink )

duanemoodydotcom says:

coolness!
Posted 33 months ago. ( permalink )

xinit says:

Steamed hashbrowns? I'm cold and afraid...
Posted 33 months ago. ( permalink )

cinemafia says:

Nice! I haven't been to a WH in at least 10 years, but as I remember you could find one about every mile or two on any major street in Gerogia. Oh and, this has been Dugg.
Posted 33 months ago. ( permalink )

phood says:

Hey,
I WAS a Waffle House cook in Phoenix decades ago. Back then, you just had to remember what to do and how it looked. If you couldn't do that, you could never handle the rush on a Sunday morning. Are cooks getting dumber? Are people's brains atrophying?
Posted 33 months ago. ( permalink )

fujiyama17 says:

cool!
Posted 33 months ago. ( permalink )

fotoshup says:

cool
Posted 33 months ago. ( permalink )

sedo1800 says:

Welcome to the digging
Posted 33 months ago. ( permalink )

millertime83 says:

wow, that's crazy.
Posted 33 months ago. ( permalink )

timmorgan says:

My father worked for a time on the front lines of a robust late 90's economy: he worked in HR for a temp agency. As a part of this, he saw lots of people come through looking for work, and as a part of their application process the company would inquire into a person's previous work history.

One day this guy came in, he was a 17 year veteran as a Waffle House short order cook. He filled out his paperwork, my father reviewed it as he sat there. All was pretty straightforward until he got down to the "Reasons for leaving last employment."

Instead of the stock answers he was used to seeing and expected, he was confronted with one word:

"Jellypacks."

Seems that this particular Waffle House had moved to the Jellypack system shown above, and after 17 years of doing his job day in and day out he couldn't keep up with the new system.

Another casualty to technology, I guess.
Posted 33 months ago. ( permalink )

flipped cracker says:

awesome. i love me some waffle house.
Posted 33 months ago. ( permalink )

SillySilers says:

my husband and my mom LOVE waffle house... i should not have learned this little trick. just the fact that i can see the kitchen while i'm waiting for my order, and them slip sliding across the kitchen on greasy floors - makes me sick.

Now this... makes OCD side of me go nuts - i'll be looking at the cook's hands now for sure - if he scratches his balls, picks his nose, brushes his hair back, slaps a roach... OMG... the possibilities are endless. hahaha
Posted 33 months ago. ( permalink )

uva_sig says:

Sweet find!
Posted 33 months ago. ( permalink )

durlando says:

This is not just happening at Waffle House. When I was a barista at Starbucks about ten years ago, we had a similar way of keeping track of orders (and since this happened to be the second-busiest Starbucks at the time, we needed one). You turned the cup upside down, on its side, with the cup opening facing you, or whatever to indicate cappuccino, decaf, half-caf, etc. It was a neat system but of course has gone by the wayside as turnover gets worse and automation takes over.
Posted 33 months ago. ( permalink )

absentmindedprof says:

timmorgan, that is a great story. i'm glad the guy (seemed to have) had a sense of humor about it.
Posted 33 months ago. ( permalink )

maltoodle says:

Thanks for posting this - my visits to Waffle House will never be the same.
Posted 33 months ago. ( permalink )

pishee says:

interesting!!!
--
Seen on kottke.org (?)
Posted 33 months ago. ( permalink )

DRAllen says:

durlando-I thought you just wrote the order on the side of the cup at Starbucks..why the other system?
Posted 33 months ago. ( permalink )

InsideThePerimeter says:

Of course they communicate using condiments. Have you ever tried understanding their words? It's not easy. :)
Posted 33 months ago. ( permalink )

a.k.a. Flash says:

This makes me hungry.
Posted 33 months ago. ( permalink )

staramaze says:

insanity! Don't they have pens/paper?
Posted 33 months ago. ( permalink )

afsheen says:

For what it's worth, I'm not sure they actually do have a way to indicate dry toast.

It often takes a couple of tries to get it right (with the server eventually having to stand by the toaster and grab the toast him/herself before someone else comes by and automatically covers the toast with butter).
Posted 33 months ago. ( permalink )

cmill603 says:

dry toast is a butter cup on the jelly.the pickles indicate what is on a breakfast sandwich, such as bacon, sausage etc.
Posted 33 months ago. ( permalink )

jane4hearts says:

Now if they'd only clean up their kitchens. I stopped eating there a couple years back because it was always so dirty.
Posted 32 months ago. ( permalink )

raz0rii says:

cmill603 -

You're ALMOST right. Dry toast is marked with a butter cup UNDER the jelly packet.
Posted 32 months ago. ( permalink )

MelTheFruitFly says:

It's cool to see this... and even though I can't believe I'm about to say this, I miss Waffle House. I guess when you grow up eating mostly gross food in a hostile environment surrounded by the dregs of humanity, you learn to love it in a way.

And durlando stole my thunder with the reveal on the old Starbucks way. I worked at one in 1994, and it was amazing how that simple little stacking system allowed me to keep track of 6, 7, 8 orders or more at a time. Of course, back then we didn't have even a quarter of the drinks they have to make now, so I'd imagine that's why that system gave way to writing the order on the cups. And don't get me started on the fact that no one knows how to properly pull a nice shot of espresso these days, since all those lackeys have to do now is press a button.

Um, sorry. My mind wandered. Where was I?

Oh yeah, cool pic. :)
Posted 32 months ago. ( permalink )

suzanne.1012 says:

I love me some waffle house. I am actually toying with the idea of a franchise... we moved to Alexandria, VA recently and I can't believe how much I love the WH!

how is it that the woman cooking seems to be the same person in Shreveport, Williamsburg and Greensboro? are they cloned?
Posted 32 months ago. ( permalink )

suzanne.1012 says:

that Bucks thing is the coolest ever!
Posted 32 months ago. ( permalink )

ricco_march2001 says:

dry white toast
one jelly pack on top of a butter pack on top of a small upside down plate
<master grill op at waffle house :D
Posted 31 months ago. ( permalink )

ne_atl says:

4am falling out of the Bar/club drunk. Whats the most beautiful site in the night time sky???? A well lit Waffle House sign. Chicken Melt, fresh coffee and hash browns.

I love the south!
Posted 31 months ago. ( permalink )

professionalwannabe says:

This system is really neat. I thought there were supposedly one or 2 other rival systems that a small minority of Waffle Houses use, in addition to this system. Maybe someone can clue me in, if there actually are any other rival cooking systems that certain other WaHos use(or not, and if this is the standard one in all locations).

I thought timmorgan's story was interesting too about a former WaHo cook quit his job, since they switched away from the former way of communicating orders to the "jellypack" system.
Posted 30 months ago. ( permalink )

rmiles says:

Dry toast is indicated by putting the jelly pack on top of a butter cup. right side up jelly is white, upside down is wheat (I think you said that earlier anyway). A single hashbrown on the plate means it gets them, versus nothing for grits because eggs automatically come with grits unless they are a plate. 20 years managing WH and I have seen three different systems including just cooking by memory when I started. The latest incarnation is most definitely easier.
Posted 30 months ago. ( permalink )

rmiles says:

Also, we didn't "switch" from the former way, just added to it. Orders are still called out, but by adding to the system it makes it easier to remember. The only cooks that had a hard time with it were the ones that were already having problems remembering stuff to begin with.
Posted 30 months ago. ( permalink )

hazzardcountylover says:

the way to mark dry toats is a butter cup under the jelly pack the placement of the pickles has no relation to what is being cooked if a server calles a grilled cheese plate the cook will put 2 pickles on the 3 oclock position of the platter and a few hb on the 12 oclock to maek hb if the pickles get moved to the 6 oclock position it would not mean a bacon grilled cheese becouse the server did not tell the grill op to pull 1 bacon. im a seasoned WH waitress and grill op any more questions jusk ask!
Posted 29 months ago. ( permalink )

Tony Dezenzio Photography says:

I really miss the good ol Waffle House folks and the food. Nothing
like it.
Posted 27 months ago. ( permalink )

amandapatria says:

It is illegal to take pictures of Waffle House... supplies such as menues and tickets and 'cheat sheets'. Not that I particularly care-just to let you know.
If a plate gets turned-what ever is marked is what gets made. So a new order has to be made if the wrong one was there.
I used to work at the awful-waful; it was a great experience to further me on towards the rest of my life. It was clean, fun, and sometimes the old 'regulars' cheerfully say hello when they happen to see me.
Every chain of restaurants or franchises have a few bad, which does not make all of them bad.
Posted 26 months ago. ( permalink )

dalasv says:

@amandapatria: Maybe they told you employees that it was illegal, but they would have a pretty tough time winning in a court of law.
Posted 26 months ago. ( permalink )

gayle.charles says:

i was a waffle house master grill op. for over 10 years. it was an awsome experience it was a blast. it aint for everybody
Posted 25 months ago. ( permalink )

fallenrockerofev says:

I am a Waffle House cook/ assistant manager. Dry toast is a buttercup under the jelly packet. Anything else you would like to know?
Posted 25 months ago. ( permalink )

Moncrief Speaks says:

Hi, I'm an admin for a group called American English, and we'd love to have your photo added to the group.
Posted 25 months ago. ( permalink )

moodawna says:

If you think it's discusting watching your food being made go to a resturaunt where you can't see the cooks and what they're doing with their hands.
Posted 22 months ago. ( permalink )

gunnarsson72 says:

I take the T-Bone ;-)
Posted 20 months ago. ( permalink )

Dr. Grill says:

In regard's to the comment about not sure how to mark for dry wheat toast....I am a Waffle House Grill Operator and the way you mark for that is a jelly pack upside down on a butter cup. That is the way we mark for dry wheat toast!
Posted 19 months ago. ( permalink )

waffleguy992000 says:

after 18 years and doing every job from host to district manager you see a lot of changes and boy was this marker system worth it
Posted 14 months ago. ( permalink )

danamclean101 says:

I am currently attempting to do a waffle house photo project in 10 states and I need votes to get the cash to do so, it only takes a minute.You can read about it on the link below. This is a dream photo assignment project and yes I picked Waffle House...After you vote you can right your waffle house in the comment section. THANKS

www.nameyourdreamassignment.com/the-ideas/DMO NA/smothered...
Posted 8 months ago. ( permalink )

sillysprat says:

To those who think WH is unsanitary. WH has an open grill so you can see exactly how the cooks and waitresses prepare your food. You can watch their every move, and can talk with the cook as they're preparing your food. You can't do that in most other restaurants. Next time you go to a restaurant with a closed grill, image what the cooks and waitresses could be doing to your food. Scary isn't it? At the WH where I work, we are required to wash our hands and change gloves after every meal that's cooked. So, it's safe to say the cooks hands are the pretty sanitary. Granted, there are some careless cooks, I'm not one of them.
Posted 6 months ago. ( permalink )

Cykochic says:

As a Waffle House waitress.. or sales person i will say the only bad thing about the place is the management!! most of us are hard working individuals who like our Job!
Posted 6 months ago. ( permalink )

dalasv says:

There are more than 1500 Waffle House restaurants. I don't think you can speak for "most" of the employees. Just yourself.

www.wafflehouse.com/funfacts.asp
Posted 6 months ago. ( permalink )

garbostyle1 says:

I have worked in the food industry since I was 14 years old ,(yes ,I lied about my age),I have done every job you can imagine at any resturant chain you could imagine. If you saw what the kitchens of most of them were like ,you'd never eat out again (I DON"T). In all my years the cleanest kitchens I have ever worked in are waffle house kitchens. I never ONCE saw a bug or any rat droppings , EVER! That is so rare, believe me. I worked for them when you had to just remember everything and then later tried to work for them again under this new system and just couldn't keep up and finally quit. So ,as to the earlier comment that the ones who can't keep up with this new system were just slow to start with , not true . I was one of the few who could work with out a back-up cook and keep up just fine. The system is too confusing .
Posted 2 months ago. ( permalink )

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EXCLUSIVE - Waffle House grill cook cheat sheet

Comments

dalasv says:

Maigh says:

TheRogue says:

michaelbrutsch [deleted] says:

dcecil805 says:

{Pamphile} says:

hi_im_monkey says:

NautArch says:

billolen says:

tanjatiziana says:

Editz says:

Compwalla says:

edrabbit says:

ACLerok says:

psylux says:

diet_coke_ca says:

CapnMarrrrk [deleted] says:

Prehensile Eye says:

four12 says:

nickgraywfu says:

chrisscott says:

Spatch says:

duanemoodydotcom says:

xinit says:

cinemafia says:

phood says:

fujiyama17 says:

fotoshup says:

sedo1800 says:

millertime83 says:

timmorgan says:

flipped cracker says:

SillySilers says:

uva_sig says:

durlando says:

absentmindedprof says:

maltoodle says:

pishee says:

DRAllen says:

InsideThePerimeter says:

a.k.a. Flash says:

staramaze says:

afsheen says:

cmill603 says:

jane4hearts says:

raz0rii says:

MelTheFruitFly says:

suzanne.1012 says:

suzanne.1012 says:

ricco_march2001 says:

ne_atl says:

professionalwannabe says:

rmiles says:

rmiles says:

hazzardcountylover says:

Tony Dezenzio Photography says:

amandapatria says:

dalasv says:

gayle.charles says:

fallenrockerofev says:

Moncrief Speaks says:

moodawna says:

gunnarsson72 says:

Dr. Grill says:

waffleguy992000 says:

danamclean101 says:

sillysprat says:

Cykochic says:

dalasv says:

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