24 Waffle House Locations Remain Closed After Hurricane Helene

Two dozen Waffle House locations remain closed more than a week after Hurricane Helene touched down in North Carolina.

The Weather Channel reported that the popular casual dining chain has kept locations in Asheville, North Carolina; Greenburg-Spartanburg, South Carolina; as well as Augusta and Valdosta, Georgia, closed, as it’s both unsafe to keep them open, and there is significant damage to the restaurants.

Sometimes, the “Waffle House Index” is used to predict how severe a storm’s effects might be. In fact, the company’s official website features a page dedicated to this unofficial barometer of a storm’s severity.

“Green means the restaurant is serving a full menu, a signal that damage in an area is limited and the lights are on. Yellow means a limited menu, indicating power from a generator, at best, and low food supplies. Red means the restaurant is closed, a sign of severe damage in the area or unsafe conditions,” the company wrote.

“If you get there and the Waffle House is closed?” FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate said, according to the same statement. “That’s really bad. That’s where you go to work.”

Waffle House Raised Prices Following a Wage Increase

Back in June, Waffle House announced that it was going to increase its prices to help pay for employee salary hikes. This measure is in line with similar ones taken by In-N-Out of California, which also raised prices to comply with the state’s new $20 minimum wage. Waffle House is just one of many companies, especially in the fast-food sector, that are under tremendous pressure to increase pay as a result of historically high inflation.

Waffle House will increase menu prices in order to pay for these wage hikes. Because living expenses are higher in metropolitan areas, the price increases will be more noticeable there. CEO Joe Rogers III noted in a video message to staff that while customers in urban centers may see bigger price increases, outlying areas will face more mild changes.

Following a string of strikes called by the Union of Southern Service Workers, which represents Waffle House employees, this decision was made. The union demanded that all employees be paid $25 per hour, that restaurants provide round-the-clock security in response to a spike in in-store violence, and that the firm stop taking $3.15 from employees’ paychecks every day for meals, regardless of whether they eat on the job.