Food snobs who typically ignore the scattered, smothered and covered charms of Southern greasy spoons have begun flocking to former Waffle Houses, partaking of the latest trend in start-up eateries down South.
A new generation of enterprising chefs is taking refuge in the abandoned shells of retired chain restaurants, realizing their edible ambitions in the very spaces where truckers once drank too much black coffee and elderly women paid for their grilled cheese sandwiches in change. Formidable Mexican, Thai and Italian restaurants have taken up residence where eggs and hash browns once reigned.
The Southeast is dotted with former Waffle Houses and Huddle Houses (WH's cut-rate cousin), their industrial-strength kitchens still very much intact. For restaurateurs with limited budgets and a boundless appreciation of late-night Dixie dining culture, the allure is irresistible.
"We wanted to utilize everything that was here and not strip everything out and replace it," Colleah Habif says of retrofitting a former Huddle House as Sugar Beet Café in Fairview, N.C.
Sugar Beet, a bustling breakfast and lunch joint that makes good on its organic and seasonal promises, doesn't try to obscure its short-order origins. But at restaurants such as Basil Thai in Charleston, S.C., where lanterns dangle from the ceiling and the counter has been covered in a deep brown lacquer, even a Huddle House waitress would be hard-pressed to recognize the eatery.
Other restaurants honor their culinary heirs with their menus, like the burger, fry and shake lineup offered at CJ's Butcher Boy Burgers, housed in an old Russellville, Ark., Waffle House. At CJ's, the burgers are hand-patted and the fries made to order: It's the meal every frustrated franchise grill cook has always dreamed of making.
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