Viral Waffle House brawls may be good for its business model Unsplash.com: Jon TysonAn in-depth report claims the viral brawls that break out at Waffle House locations may actually benefit the breakfast chain, rather than hurt its image. Waffle House\u2019s reputation precedes itself. The 24-hour breakfast chain is known throughout the US for being the go-to spot after a night of heavy drinking, serving up calorie-dense meals for hungry partiers. However, as much as it\u2019s touted as a perfect hangover cure, it\u2019s also a well-known hotspot for violent behavior. Over the past few years, a slew of videos have gone viral on social media showing brawls breaking out at Waffle House locations across the country. In December 2022, an employee famously parried a chair being thrown at her in a video that took over Twitter and TikTok, with users affectionately dubbing her the \u201cWaffle House Avenger.\u201d While it might seem like customers would avoid Waffle House due to these incidents, the opposite seems to be the case. Since then, Waffle House has become even more culturally relevant, with the likes of American music artist Lana Del Ray spotted serving patrons at the chain in Summer 2023. Waffle House brawls might be good for business An in-depth report from nonprofit newsroom More Perfect Union argued that these viral scuffles may be elevating Waffle House\u2019s reputation, essentially doing the franchise\u2019s advertising free of charge. According to reporter Alec Opperman, \u201cIt turns out the chain\u2019s violent reputation isn\u2019t just getting views. It may be actually connected to Waffle House\u2019s wildly successful business model.\u201d University of Central Florida professor Ty Matejowsky pointed out that Waffle House doesn\u2019t do much advertising at all \u2014 but notes that this leaves the chain in a \u201cunique position\u201d for marketing its brand. \u201cI would suggest that Waffle House kind of cedes their messaging authority to others in terms of what the brand actually means,\u201d he said. \u201cPeople oftentimes visit Waffle House with the expectation that, you know, they may indeed witness some of these types of occurrences firsthand.\u201d \u2018Rockstar\u2019 Waffle House cook Gerald Greene also noted that Waffle House \u201cbenefits\u201d from the viral fight videos, saying \u201cit gets them a lot of free publicity online.\u201d However, this reputation does have some drawbacks, leaving employees to deal with violent customers \u2014 with one worker even getting fatally shot in a robbery gone wrong. While Waffle House might be a US cultural icon, its status as a late-night eatery with a penchant for violence isn\u2019t a great thing for workers, who are demanding better pay and more protections from its rowdy clientele.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Viral Waffle House brawls may be good for its business model Unsplash.com: Jon TysonAn in-depth report claims the viral brawls that break out at Waffle House locations may actually benefit the breakfast chain, rather than hurt its image. Waffle House\u2019s reputation precedes itself. The 24-hour breakfast chain is known throughout the US for being the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-63597","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63597","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=63597"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63597\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}