Like any average American, I am a massive fan of breakfast food; I can basically eat waffles, eggs, bacon, toast, or anything of the sort, at any time of the day.
Because I am a breakfast fiend, I love dining at chains like IHOP, Denny’s, Metro Diner, and the Breakfast Club in Oviedo; so, to the greater percentage of my friends and colleagues, it came as a complete shock to them that I had never indulged in the breakfast menu at the renowned (and often celebrated) Waffle House.
It wasn’t necessarily my choice to miss out on Waffle House for the first nineteen years of my life. As I’ve grown up just 10 minutes out of Miami, there has never been a Waffle House close enough to where I live; the closest one is about 30 minutes away in a different county and area code. While that isn’t too far of a drive, school work and extracurricular activities always got in the way of the opportunity.
Although I’ve missed out in my hometown, that doesn’t necessarily mean I’ve been missing out since I traded South Florida for Central Florida, right? Wrong. Even when I have been living in Orlando for the past 7 months, where there is a restaurant 8 minutes off campus, I still hadn’t gotten the chance to see what the hype is all about. So, my sister, who is also a Knight and a Waffle House virgin, and her best friend, who is known as a Waffle House connoisseur, have decided to change just that.
We decided to finally pop our Waffle House cherries by taking I-75 to our closest restaurant in SoFlo, which is in Davie, FL. With a quick Spotify playlist of our favorite throwback jams blaring through the speakers of my sister’s Nissan, we got there in no time. While the parking lot was small, parking was not an issue at all.
The inside of the restaurant was small and narrow, but it felt cozy, almost like a home. While we sat in a booth, the kitchen was right beside us, buzzing with employees left and right. Our server, whose name was Dawn, greeted us with a smile and handed us menus right away. She was happy to take our orders as soon as we were ready.
My sister and I took no time when deciding what to order as our first-ever meal at Waffle House. We both decided to go for the $8.00 All-Star special, which includes toast, eggs, hash browns and/or grits, bacon and/or sausage, and of course, a signature waffle with maple syrup. I decided to go for bacon, hash browns, and toast with a sunny-side up egg while my sister went for scrambled eggs and biscuits and gravy as a substitute for toast.
It took less than 10 minutes for our feast to be placed in front of us, and let’s just say that made me ecstatic. I was happy enough to dance and shuffle in my seat as Dawn laid my breakfast down in front of me.
My sister and I were incredibly satisfied with our first Waffle House experience. The service was amazing in all aspects—the food and checks came quickly and our server (along with every other employee) was so kind and accommodated to our needs. The food was delicious, the bacon was crispy but not burnt, the eggs were the perfect ratio of soft and runny, and the waffles, although they were flat, were still fluffy and delightfully decadent.
I think we can agree that we will, without a doubt, be coming back to Waffle House when we make it back to Central Florida!
