The Larder: Food Studies Methods from the American South

CHAPTER 10 “America’s Place for Inclusion”: Stories of Food, Labor, and Equality at the Waffle House

CHAPTER 10 ▶ “America’s Place for Inclusion” Stories of Food, Labor, and Equality at the Waffle House katie rawson “Love it. Martin Luther King had a dream, and I think Waffle House was in it,” declares singer-songwriter John Mayer. According to Waffle House’s chairman Joe Rogers Jr.,in the introduction of Inc,Waffle House’s corporate magazine,Waffle House is not simply “Good Food, Fast” or even “America’s Place to Work, America’s Place to Eat” but also “America’s Place for Inclusion .” While the claims Mayer and Rogers made about the profound national position of the Waffle House may be hyperbolic and even off-putting, these statements reflect the way Waffle House fans and Waffle House Incorporated consistently present the all-night diner as a diverse and egalitarian American place. Waffle House is a Georgia-based diner that has done more than survive into the twenty-first century; it has explosively franchised. It is an all-night diner with inexpensive food, and, as a diner instead of a fast-food restaurant , it has waiters and waitresses. The chain is popularly presented as having a southern and working-class identity, but these traits are alternately rarified, criticized, camped, and simply experienced. The company’s crafted and maintained brand oscillates between recognition of its retro appeal and attempts to claim varying elements of the contemporary market (for example , in the“light corner menu” and“dollar menu,” both adopted in 2010). Waffle House usually represents itself as fostering interpersonal relationships and a “local” identity that places such as McDonalds or Applebee’s do not. It is a restaurant with a concerned corporate structure, a cult following, and a customer base of mixed class, age, and race. This essay is a critical exploration of the notion of inclusion and of the “America’s Place for Inclusion” 217 ways in which different kinds of narrative are used to constitute it within a particular site. Waffle House serves as a case study to understand how and why ideals of inclusion are produced at certain sites and how this relates to the realities of these sites. This essay focuses on corporate and cultural narratives as sites of value-driven authorship, and on the impact of spatial construction as a way to understand these narratives and evaluate them in an experiential context. Particularly, it explores how these corporate and cultural narratives of inclusion deal with or elide issues of race and class. Defining Inclusion The notion of inclusion is central to how Waffle House sees itself. But what does Joe Rogers Jr. actually mean when he says that Waffle House is“America ’s Place for Inclusion”? Before seeking to examine how inclusion is put to work in narratives about Waffle House, I want to clarify the concept of inclusion itself.In her introduction to Inc,Waffle House editor Julie London inversely (and vaguely) defines the term, saying,“Diversity is about inclusion and respect.” Though not especially insightful,this sentence provides a foundation to begin thinking about inclusion.First,London situates the notion of inclusion within social structures: differentiated people and the way they interact are the focus of her letter as well as the focus of the magazine. Second, she brings into play two important concepts: diversity and respect. Working out from the suggestions Waffle House Inc. makes relating diversity, respect, and inclusion, this essay draws on political theorist Iris Marion Young’s ideas of inclusion. In Inclusion and Democracy, Young posits that inclusive democracy allows everyone involved to have an influential voice. Maintaining the importance of difference, she calls for an open forum where various people with various positions and rhetorical styles could be heard. Like London’s assertion, Young’s definition of inclusion requires people to recognize diversity and then respectfully communicate without effacing difference. Her definition, designed for political forums, can be used as a critical tool to examine the commercial and social space of a Waffle House by finding the correlative for constituencies and for voice. In Young’s terms, who would need to be included to make Waffle House “America’s Place for Inclusion”? Workers, customers (or people who desire 218 Katie Rawson to be customers), and corporate personnel—and depending on the situation , it may also include...