Waffle House is a staple of Southern culture, appearing in song lyrics and on movie screens, and even serving as a federal barometer for severe weather events.
“It is indeed marvelous, an irony-free zone, where everything is beautiful and nothing hurts,” Anthony Bourdain, the late chef and television host, once said of Waffle House. “It never closes. It is always, always faithful. Always there for you.”
But on a sunny May afternoon in downtown Atlanta, Waffle House found itself in a very different position: as a target.
A group of labor advocates marched to a Waffle House to demand better pay and working conditions, chanting “We work, we sweat. Put $25 on our check.”
Credit: Amy Wenk
Credit: Amy Wenk
Some of the biggest organizing campaigns in the South center on the auto industry. But the May rally was an effort in a yearslong campaign by the Union of Southern Service Workers to put public pressure on the iconic, 24-hour diner chain.
“If we can get Waffle House to treat us with respect, then companies all across the South will have no choice but to do the same,” Katie Giede, a Waffle House worker in Conyers and a USSW member, told the group that clustered at Centennial Olympic Park.
Waffle House, a Norcross-based company with 47,000 employees, mostly hourly workers, has become a flash point in a broader labor debate in the South, where union participation is historically low.
Restaurants typically operate on thin profit margins because of labor, food and energy costs, and many depend on tips to boost worker wages. But the food service industry, which employs about 10% of the U.S. workforce, is difficult to unionize because of high staff turnover, experts said.
Waffle House, which typically shies from media interviews, now is defending its brand and sharing how the company has worked to improve conditions for its workers over the past decade, including wage gains that have significantly outpaced inflation.
The company, in response to questions from The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, said it is spending an additional $200 million per year on compensation and benefits for its workers.
This journey, which began in 2015, several years before the union campaign, has included base pay increases, new leadership opportunities, expanded paid time off and bonus programs, including those that award employee tenure, the company said in written responses to questions from the AJC.
Credit: (Ben Gray for the AJC)
Credit: (Ben Gray for the AJC)
Waffle House says the hourly wage for its servers now averages $23.91, including base pay, tips and bonus programs. For cooks, the hourly wage averages $19.46 including base pay and bonuses, the company said.
For comparison, a decade ago, total compensation for servers, including tips, averaged $13.82 per hour, and for cooks, $10.91 per hour, Waffle House said, or about $19 and about $15, respectively, per hour, in today’s dollars.
“We believe that our people are the most important part of our long-term success,” Waffle House said in a statement. “Roughly half of every dollar earned in revenue goes towards our people via compensation, benefits and other people-related expenses.”
Waffle House said it has used menu price increases to help fund its workforce investments, saying it is a “successful” but low-margin business.
“This reality is common in highly-competitive industries with low barriers to entry, such as restaurants,” the company said. “A vast majority of our profits, or cash flow after expenses, are deployed back into our business, reinvesting in existing restaurants, adding new restaurants and new jobs, and enhancing people-related programs.”
Credit: (Ben Gray for the AJC)
Credit: (Ben Gray for the AJC)
What makes Waffle House unique
Since the first Waffle House opened on Labor Day 1955 in Avondale Estates, the chain has become a Southern institution, famous for its breakfast fare including waffles and scattered hash browns.
Waffle House has grown to more than 2,000 restaurants across 25 states, with sales of $1.5 billion in 2025, according to market research firm Technomic.
Today, the private company is helmed by CEO Joe Rogers III, the grandson of Joe Rogers Sr., who founded the chain with Tom Forkner, with the first restaurant opening 71 years ago this week.
“We believe we have the most loyal customer base in the world, and it is because we strive every day to provide a great Waffle House experience at exceptional value,” the company said.
But Waffle House’s status in the restaurant industry has also brought attention from labor advocates, experts said, even though there has yet to be a vote to formally unionize a single restaurant.
Other labor movements have focused on food service brands such as Starbucks, which now has hundreds of unionized locations, including several in Georgia.
“Unions target a company to go after if they feel like that company is playing a major role in an industry,” said Janice Fine, a labor studies and employment relations professor and director of the Workplace Justice Lab at Rutgers University. “If they can change and improve practices of that one company … it’ll have ripple effects across an industry.”
Waffle House, unlike its competitors IHOP and Denny’s, today has few franchise locations.
During economic downturns including the Great Recession and the COVID-19 pandemic, Waffle House bought back struggling franchises. Today, the chain’s restaurants are 95% company-owned, which has given Waffle House more control over its operations and employees.
“We began to see the potential for a consistent and enhanced career and workforce brand as a competitive edge that had previously not been possible,” Waffle House said.
Waffle House’s structure bucks the trend as most big chains are moving toward franchising to reduce operational risks and labor liabilities, said Ben Lawrence, director of Georgia State University’s Cecil B. Day School of Hospitality. But it also makes Waffle House a more attractive target for labor organizers, he said.
“A union can much more likely go after a Waffle House because these people are actually employees of Waffle House,” said Lawrence, a franchise expert. “So it’s a double-edged sword, right? You’re taking more responsibility by employing these individuals, but by doing that, there’s more attention toward you as an employer.”
The restaurant industry offers a flexible schedule that attracts a range of workers seeking part- or full-time work and provides “access to people that maybe don’t have opportunities in other industries,” he said.
Credit: (Ben Gray for the AJC)
Credit: (Ben Gray for the AJC)
What the union is demanding
The USSW began its campaign against Waffle House about three years ago, holding rallies and conducting strikes at restaurants.
The first major move was a 2023 demonstration at a Columbia, South Carolina, restaurant that stirred up a battle between Waffle House and the National Labor Relations Board.
Among its demands, USSW wants Waffle House to increase base pay to $25 per hour for all workers. The federal cash minimum wage is $2.13 per hour for tipped workers, and the minimum wage is $7.25 per hour.
“We’re asking for living wages … enough to be able to afford our rent and our lives, so we don’t have to struggle so hard,” Giede, the Waffle House worker and USSW member, said in a May interview.
USSW is also calling on Waffle House for 24-hour security at restaurants and the end to mandatory meal deductions. Waffle House takes $3.15 out of a worker’s daily paycheck for two meals, snacks and drinks during a full shift, and $1.92 for a shift under four hours.
Credit: (Ben Gray for the AJC)
Credit: (Ben Gray for the AJC)
Erica Meade, who works at a Waffle House restaurant in Brookhaven and serves as a representative for USSW, said she sees many of her co-workers struggle.
“My co-workers sleep in their cars in Waffle House parking lots,” Meade said of some. “Many of my co-workers are on food stamps and rely on free lunch programs … The entire service industry is riddled with low pay, lack of safety, low staffing or overstaffing — you name it.”
The average U.S. server makes about $17.50 an hour, including tips, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That’s below what is considered a living wage in most areas and lower than what Waffle House says its average servers make.
For example, in Georgia, an individual without children needs to make more than $24 an hour to support themselves, according to data from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
The U.S. practice of tipping itself is rooted in racism and economic oppression that dates back to the post-Civil War era, according to the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank. Tipped workers today are more likely to live in poverty, and a large percentage are women, says the institute.
But restaurants also have thin margins, with about 55% to 65% of their revenue going to cover labor and food costs, Lawrence said.
Credit: (Ben Gray for the AJC)
Credit: (Ben Gray for the AJC)
“I think companies are pressed hard, especially in this economy with gas prices and inflationary pressure against their own costs,” said Jeff Herle, a professor at Oglethorpe University’s Hammack School of Business. “It is kind of a tightrope. How much can I give?”
Waffle House’s pay increases and benefits
Waffle House declined to comment on the union pressures.
The chain said its transition to mostly company-owned restaurants “has given us greater ability to drive our vision of what we call the ‘workforce of the future.’”
Waffle House said, starting in 2015, it launched a three-year, $60 million program to raise base wages for cooks and create a ranking system for them to increase earnings as they advance in skills and experience.
In 2018, the company said it established new leadership opportunities with higher pay for hourly associates on certain shifts. In 2020, Waffle House said it expanded paid time off to all hourly associates. Now, employees upon hire earn one hour of paid time off for every 30 hours worked.
In 2022, the company said it introduced tenure bonuses for cooks. Waffle House also launched a “server income protection” program that ensures servers make at least $9 per hour to more than $15 per hour, depending on the state minimum wage where the restaurant is located.
Credit: (Ben Gray for the AJC)
Credit: (Ben Gray for the AJC)
USSW formed in late 2022 and launched its campaign on Waffle House in 2023, according to media reports.
The next year, in 2024, Waffle House said it began a three-year program for servers to increase base wages and boost pay on certain shifts, as well as introduce tenure bonuses, at a cost of an additional $120 million per year. For example, a server who has worked at Waffle House for three years earns 50 cents more an hour.
In news reports, the pay boost for servers was framed as a result of union pressures. But Waffle House said the program was planned years before but delayed by the pandemic.
As of June, servers now make a base pay of $5.25 per hour, and Waffle House expects to raise this to $7.25 by 2027 in some markets, including Atlanta.
Among its benefits, Waffle House said it has offered health insurance plans to all full-time employees since 1983 and paid maternity leave for full- and part-time workers. Employees can also buy stock in the privately held company, and 35% of eligible hourly associates are shareholders.
Waffle House added it has employee appreciation programs that assist workers with back-to-school supplies, Thanksgiving dinner and Christmas gifts.
Edric Riley, a Waffle House worker who wrote a viral song about the chain and was recently fired for violating company policy around unauthorized filming, said he loved working at Waffle House.
“They’ve been doing all the stuff they say they’ve been doing,” said Riley, who is not a USSW member. But he says it’s still not helping employees have better living situations.
“For us to see a decent check to take care of ourselves, we have to work 50 to 60 hours a week and get overtime,” he said. “Then you get stuck in a loop of getting called in all the time because you really need the money.”
Credit: (Ben Gray for the AJC)
Credit: (Ben Gray for the AJC)
But Waffle House said it has seen results from its workforce investments, with turnover of its hourly employees decreasing 22% in the past two years. Today, nearly 60% of its servers and 75% of cooks have at least one year of service, the company said.
“If your turnover goes down, employees are happier. It directly shows that their investments are paying off,” Lawrence with Georgia State said.
Fine, the Rutgers professor, said Waffle House has “taken positive steps in the right direction, and there’s still a long way to go before Waffle House could be the job that allows people to support their families.”
On a recent visit to the Waffle House in Avondale Estates, near the location of the first-ever restaurant, the sweet smell of waffle batter wafted through the air. Hash browns sizzled on the griddle, and a server who has worked with Waffle House since 1987 approached the table.
“I just love people,” she said when asked if she liked working there.
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