Smothered And Covered Valentine’s Day – Waffle House Reservations

It's time to make your Waffle House reservations for Valentine's Day!  We all know that Waffle House is the one place that's open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.  And you don't usually make reservations there.  Except Valentine's Day.  It's the one day of the year that SOME Waffle House locations will require a reservation.

According to Fox 5 Atlanta, there will be close to 200 Waffle House locations that will be set up for special Valentine's Day dinner.  The restaurants will dim the lights and don the tables with nice white table cloths.

Despite Waffle House being a Georgia-based restaurant, only 19 of their locations will take Valentine's Day reservations.  South Carolina also has 19 restaurants participating.  North Carolina is the state with the most Waffle House locations offering this special Valentine's atmosphere. Twenty-seven of their locations will take reservation. Overall, there are Waffle House locations in 21 states that will provide this special dinner service on Valentine's Day.

Waffle House is a restaurant that was founded in Avondale Estates, Georgia back in 1955.  Two neighbors teamed up to open a 24-hour restaurant for friends and neighbors that "focused on people on both sides of the counter."

From there, the movement started, with new restaurants popping up in Georgia and surrounding states.  That yellow sign has become a well-known landmark in so many states.  The restaurant now has more than 1,900 locations in 25 states.  And they are open 24/7.

They founded the restaurant with the desire to provide the friendliest servce in town, but also to offer rewarding and quality careers.  The company now employs more than 40,000 associates.

While the restaurant got its start back in 1955, it was around 16 years ago that the Valentine's Day tradition started.  In fact, this tradition also originated in Georgia. In 2008, the Johns Creek location started offering the special dinner service when the manager took notice of the patrons coming in on Valentine's Day.  And the tradition quickly caught on.

Again, only select locations offer the Valentine's Day experience, and reservations must be made.  The website says to call between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. to reserve your table.

Here are the locations in Georgia and South Carolina that will be participating:

For a full list of participating restaurants, click here.

Waffle House Secrets! There's just something great about the smothered, covered, sliced, diced greasy spoon food that our friends there offer up 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

But have you ever wondered how Waffle House cooks get like, EVERYTHING right as waitresses are calling out order after order?

No matter what crazy things you seem to throw at them, the cooks just nail it.

We got the scoop, thanks, in part, to TikTok of course, and it’s pretty cool how they pull all these off.  It’s all about the condiments and some ingredients.

“Yes, it’s really important, and while it’s a secret, like the Coca-Cola recipe, we hide it in plain sight,” said Waffle House Director of Public Relations, Njeri Boss, in a statement to Nexstar. “There really isn’t a better system than what we do. It’s fast. It’s quite easy to learn.”

Waffle House has of course been well known for being involved in secrets. Like the super-not-so-secret weather monitoring index that the Federal Emergency Management Agency - FEMA - uses to help determine where things are really bad. Waffle House's don't tend to shut down unless it's REALLY bad, and/or they can't get supplies in to keep operations up and going. That makes them the perfect metric for figuring out whether FEMA should have more resources in an area.

But what all happens behind the scenes with these Waffle House secrets to get your order right? Here's the deal:

When an order is called out for scrambled eggs, watch next time. The cook will put a plate in front of the grill and put a jelly packet on the bottom of the plate vertically. That means the customer wants their eggs scrambled.

Want sunny side up eggs, the cook will put the jelly container at the top of the plate. 

Upside down jelly means wheat toast and a few pieces of hash browns on a plate means no hash browns, this order wants grits instead. I know, that one seems a tad confusing.

Butter next to jelly means this order gets a biscuit instead of toast.

If you order grits, but want them in a bowl instead of on the plate, watch them put a napkin at the top of the plate. 

Two pickles, placed at the bottom of a plate is a breakfast sandwich with bacon. Move the pickles to the left, right or top of the plate and it indicates different meats or no meat at all.

A horizontal ketchup packet on the center of the plate means a sirloin. Move the packet up or down on plate for one of the steaks five different temperatures.