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.
You might also like my photo collection of paper towel dispensers or Americana photo set.
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Baby_Phat_Goddess 15 months ago | reply
the signal foe dry wheat toast is that you draw a smll w and put a circle around it so if yu get an order of two eggs scrambled with dry toast you would say order scrambled dry......
MetallichickX 15 months ago | reply
@cavale: The cook's name isn't Mark. The system we use to call in orders is called the "Pull, Drop, Mark" system, where the waitress tells the cook to "pull" all the meats for the order, "drop" the number of hashbrowns for the order, and then "mark" the order itself.
Waffle House has had three variations of their call-in system over the years. The original "Memory Cooks" had to remember everything the waitress called in. Then, the "Magic Marker System" (pictured here) was introduced (in the 90s). Then, they went a step further and added the "pull/drop" to it (in the early 2000s). A good memory cook would be slowed down by the newer systems but there aren't a lot of employees at waffle house with good memories ;) , so that hasn't really been a problem.
Oh, and as far as the mysterious "Super Master Grill Operator" goes, it's a position that existed before the last minimum wage increase (the one that brought it up to $7.25), but was phased out because Waffle House didn't want to have to pay people that much. When the minimum was $5.15, that's what we paid the "apprentice grill operator" (trainee). Then a regular grill op would make ~$6/hr, the master grill op would make closer to ~$7/hr, and a super master would make upwards of $7.50/hr. Using the same pay increases between positions now would mean that a super master grill operator would make something like $10/hr and Waffle House very specifically will not pay their cooks more than $9/hr (for the most seasoned veterans they have). Thus, the "Super Master Grill Operator" disappeared from the pay charts.
Signed, a 10-year Waffle House waitress/master grill op.
ezperkins 12 months ago | reply
I'm a cook at Waffle House, when I was training, I thought this was a joke.
G. Butler Studio 11 months ago | reply
Great, knowing my plate hosted any number of condiment packages confirms that it hosts a lot that could only be seen with a microscope.