Waffle House Plate Code

You’re listening to A Way with Words, the show about language and how we use it.

I’m Grant Barrett.

And I’m Martha Barnette.

Grant, you remember not long ago we were talking about the cup code at the Harvey House chain of restaurants in the American West.

Yeah, it was a code where the waitstaff would turn the coffee cups on the table a certain way, and then the other waitstaff, other servers, would know what kind of coffee and what ad it is.

Exactly. And a lot of listeners called and wrote us to talk about other restaurant codes.

And the one that keeps coming up again and again is the restaurant code used at the Waffle House restaurant chain.

In fact, Minnesota listener Rachel Zooksworth sent us a link to a 24-minute Waffle House training video that explains this coded system for servers calling out orders to cooks.

And at first, it looks absolutely bonkers.

Of course, I watched the whole thing.

But when a server calls out the order, the cook starts arranging jelly packs and ketchup packs and other items on the plate in a very special way.

It’s as if the cook is taking notes, but they’re taking notes using condiments.

For example, if you imagine that the plate is a face of a clock.

Well, at Waffle House, the default order for eggs is two eggs plus grits and white toast.

And if the cook hears an order for scrambled eggs, they place a jelly pack right side up at the 6 o’clock position.

If the order’s for wheat toast, they turn the jelly pack over.

If the customer wants raisin toast instead of white toast, then the cook places a pack of apple butter on the plate instead of jelly.

And if they don’t want butter at all on their toast, then the cook puts a packet of butter under the jelly pack to remind themselves to hold the butter.

And if the customer wants only one egg, then the cook marks that by sticking a packet of ketchup under the jelly pack.

This is so amazing. This is astonishing.

It’s a great video. We’ll put a link on our website.

And you know, Grant, these mnemonic devices are complicated, but they’re really effective because you don’t have lost tickets.

You don’t have to worry about illegible handwriting.

And a trained cook can pretty much walk into any Waffle House anywhere in the country and just start cooking right away.

That is astonishing. I love it.

I just wonder if it all was invented in one go or this is slow accretion over decades, how they reach this point where this is their thing.

And it does make you wonder what else you’re missing.

That’s so amazing. Let’s keep those codes coming.

What are the different ways that you can signal information without using words in the workplace or part of hobbies or some other way?

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