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Comment by Balgair | Hacker News Reader

Anyone that eats at a place based on the decor or the other clients is missing out on a lot of good living. This goes up and down, for Waffle House and the Savile'. Generally, if people decide to eat at a place based on what they think others will think of them, then I think you know what to think of them.

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That's something I've noticed as well. My own take on Mexican restaurants is, the more elaborate the decor, the less impressive the food. The little taqueria in the strip mall has far better food at a far lower price than the impressive-looking chain restaurant, in my experience.

It's called : Yellow Sign Mexican, at least in LA. All the best Mexican food places tend to be in a strip mall and have a yellow sign with black letters on the 'billboard' thingy for the strip mall

The real testament to Waffle House is the way more than a few hipsters of my acquaintance started going for a serving of post-party irony--then found out they really love hash browns in some variation of Scattered, Smothered, Covered, Chunked & Topped. Even more especially, it's the the vibe: Waffle House is one place pretense won't get you anywhere, so just chill with your crew and confess your sins as the sun comes up.

Bingo. You can't pretend to be anything in a Waffle House. You are hungover, we know it, you know it. Who cares if you drove up in a Bugatti? You're still eating dollar fried eggs and dollar coffee just like the rest of us, you just can't showboat.

Indeed, one of my favourite restaurants in the world is BBQ King in Sydney (Liverpool St). Mind you it has been 15 years since I last ate there but the décor was always 20 years behind, serviceable and well used. The clientèle was always broad with a skew towards the low key. But what most people didn't realise is that quite often you would find chefs from Sydney's Michelin establishments eating there. The food was to die for; their BBQ sauce was a bottle full of smokey heaven. What's more the prices were very very reasonable. Indeed too many people miss out on some of the wonders of this world because they don't want to be associated with "that type" (whatever "that type" maybe).

In Australia it may be different, as I know it tends to be a bit more classist than the US. But, yeah. I used to know one of the best bartenders in New Orleans, or so he said he was, I think maybe they all were after your 5th Hurricane. His favorite place was out in the swamp with a single string of Christmas lights as the only illumination source for the whole place. They had free drinks on Tuesdays if you showed up naked, all day, but shut that down when only men showed up, all flabby, sweaty, and plastered. Still, my friend liked that place better than anything in 5 miles of Bourbon St. and said they had better drinks too. It's about what you want out of it. Good food and drinks, or the Instagram shot?

I grew up in a suburb just off Buena Vista in Columbus, GA. The Waffle House on Buena Vista was "my" Waffle House.

It was in that parking lot that some stranger tried to buy the family car from my parents. My parents bought it new and kept it for more than two decades. It had become a "classic" and was still in good shape.

Lots of good memories.

And I love their decor. It is practical and convenient. The layout is extremely efficient. If you know what you want, you can be served hot food in minutes.

I don't know why there aren't any other chains trying to imitate parts of their model.

>If you know what you want, you can be served hot food in minutes.

>I don't know why there aren't any other chains trying to imitate parts of their model.

I've noticed this too. It seems like there's a split between "fast food" and "sit down" in the chain l world, bit no one else goes for the short order diner style. It's really a shame, as I think there's a big space for it.

What you're talking about is, in more modern times, called "fast casual". It's not quite fast enough to be fast food, because it's actual real food, but it's cooked in an efficient enough process that it can be served within minutes.

Noodles and Co, Panera, Culvers, etc.

Yet those places are 4x the price of Waffle House. I mean, yes, you are paying for the decor and the avo-toast, but they are still a lot more than dollar coffee and 2$ hash browns.

I'm willing to bet every town with over 500 people in America has a shitty local diner with greasy food for dirt cheap prices, and any town over 10k has at least one Denny's, so "why doesn't anyone do what Waffle House does" isn't really the question. The answer to that is "plenty of places do", they're just not chains. But really at that price point and that kind of food, if you really need a chain restaurant, McDonalds is going to fill that niche just fine.

The other places are more upmarket, yes, because "greasy food for really cheap prices" is literally McDonalds. Anything between that and a real sit-down-and-order restaurant is called fast casual and you're going to pay a bit more for it.

> "if people decide to eat at a place based on what they think others will think of them, then I think you know what to think of them."

Priceless. Is this yours, @Balgair?

Thanks and yes, at least, I hope so. You ever know what you thought you thunked up or what you actually heard from somewhere else.

Also, no downvotes guys, it was a simple question and totally in line with HN guidelines.

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