Nashville Waffle House Closes Before Storm, But Don’t Panic

NASHVILLE, TN — A Nashville Waffle House abruptly closed Thursday just hours before the first winter storm of the season was expected in Middle Tennessee, but don’t worry, it’s no reason to panic, unless you happen to be desperate for an affordable breakfast and in the not-quite-Bellevue part of the city.

Certainly, concern would be warranted. After all, if America’s culinary Colossus of Roads tumbled in the face of winter’s wrath, what hope do mere mortals have once the frozen fury falls? So well-regarded as a paragon of reliability is the 24/7/365 purveyor of cheap comfort food that the Federal Emergency Management Agency, at least informally, uses a “Waffle House Index” to triage the most stricken areas in a natural disaster.

As former FEMA chief Craig Fugate told the Wall Street Journal “If you get there and the Waffle House is closed? That's really bad. That's where you go to work.”

But, in this case, while the timing is intriguing, the reason is far more mundane than a pending winter apocalypse.

The restaurant at Charlotte Pike and Cabot Drive, just off I-40’s Exit 201, is being remodeled, according to the staff at the White Bridge Road location three miles east, some of whom have been temporarily assigned for duty there from their usual billet at the Charlotte location. A Waffle House spokesman told Patch the Charlotte location will be closed for about nine months.

That may be cold comfort to the regulars and not-so-regulars who frequent the Charlotte Pike location, not to mention the long-haul truckers so in need of hashbrowns and grits they are willing to negotiate the bizarre turn from Charlotte onto Cabot and then into the Waffle House parking lot.

After all, the virtue of Waffle House isn’t just that it has an easily navigated menu with a soothingly low price point, it’s that it’s always there, always open and always ready, no matter the circumstance.

That’s not just part of its charm, it’s part of its design as the restaurant detailed to the WSJ: when nature strikes, Waffle House is ready with a logistical plan that would make Gen. Lucius Clay green with envy, rolling out a special menu, generators and extra non-perishables to sate the caloric needs of people often without power and in need of a hot meal.

The restaurant chain is understandably proud of FEMA’s metric and says that keeping its locations open during crises helps communities feel a sense of normalcy.

And so, no matter what this weekend’s storm brings to Tennessee, Waffle House will be there, it just may be a few exits farther away.

Photo by J.R. Lind, Patch staff