Dining
At Waffle House, a Side of Drama with Breakfast
(Nov. 27, 2011) AVONDALE ESTATES, Ga. — The two men accused of robbing a string of Waffle House restaurants in Georgia and Alabama had a routine. They placed to-go orders, and after the food was cooked, the police say, they pulled out guns and demanded all the store’s cash. Sometimes they ate, sometimes they did not. “Another day, another Waffle House robbery,” began one article in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, as 18 Waffle Houses were robbed this summer. Throughout the South, it was not so much the three-week crime spree that caught people’s attention. It was the location. Waffle House, a ubiquitous chain of yellow-roofed diners, is as much a fixture of Southern life as the grits, hash browns and crispy waffles that it serves all day, every day, even on Christmas. In Georgia, where the 1,600-store chain originated, it is hard to find an Interstate exit without the restaurant’s yellow block-letter sign nearby. In the Atlanta area alone, there are 230 locations, all offering heaping portions, strong coffee and jukeboxes that play songs about Waffle House. And federal emergency officials even use what they call the Waffle House Index to determine how severe natural disasters are in the South. If a local Waffle House is closed, along with a Home Depot or a Wal-Mart, it indicates a longer recovery process. But in recent weeks, bad news has kept coming for the restaurant chain.
Read MoreRecipe for Coke? One More to Add to the File
(Feb. 19, 2011) ATLANTA — Over the years, the public radio show “This American Life” has done some ambitious work. It was the first media outlet in the country to broadcast lengthy interviews with Guantánamo Bay prisoners. It sent reporters to Iraq for a month. And it exposed the misdeeds of a hedge fund. So what other topic could be so weighty, so captivating that it would cause the radio show’s Web site to crash under a stampede of visitors? A soft-drink recipe. The host, Ira Glass, revealed on last weekend’s show what he claimed was the original formula for Coca-Cola. He found it buried in a little-noticed article in the archives of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Read MoreFamous Burgers Selling Fast, but the Restaurant Is Not
(Nov. 26, 2010) ATLANTA — As real estate deals go, the sale of Ann’s Snack Bar may be a true test of the value of cult food in a bad economy. In other words, just how much is a Ghetto Burger worth? After 38 years of serving her messy, hand-pressed burgers to an endless parade of restaurant critics, celebrities like Sean Combs and, lately, a horde of Twitter-driven food enthusiasts, Ann Price decided it was time to put down her spatula and get a little return on her investment. She thought about all those years of work and her growing national reputation and set the price at $1.5 million in August 2009. After all, one national food critic even said she made the best burger in the country. “People come here from all over the world, people from every race,” said Ms. Price, 67, who personally makes every burger. “Everybody wants to know: what is a Ghetto Burger?”
Read MoreA Southern Twist: Sweet-Tea Vodka
(Feb. 10, 2009) It is such a simple idea, so plainly obvious that many Southerners can’t believe they didn’t think of it first: take the South’s trademark refreshment — sweet iced tea — and make it alcoholic. That, essentially, was the recipe used by a South Carolina distillery last year to create a phenomenon. Its elixir, Firefly Sweet Tea Vodka, tastes almost exactly like the beloved sweet tea poured at generations of Southern family reunions, church meetings and picnics. In just months, Firefly Distillery on Wadmalaw Island has expanded sales of its Sweet Tea Vodka to 40 states. Below the Mason-Dixon line, where fans are most rabid, the amber-brown liquor flows at colleges, bars and football games. Sweet Tea Vodka is 70 proof, a bit tamer than most vodkas, but the sweetness makes it seem even less potent. The daintiest drinkers can take shots without wincing (except, perhaps, from the sugar). Some people mix it with lemonade to create a John Daly, an alcoholic version of an Arnold Palmer. Others serve it over ice, lime juice, mint leaves and soda water as a “mo-tea-to.”
Read More