For once, John Oliver is choosing to focus on the positives, at least where Waffle House is concerned. During the latest episode of “Last Week Tonight,” the HBO host dove into the Midwest and Southern restaurant chain, praising the hope and relief it provides people who have been impacted by recent hurricanes. The segment came in the wake of the devastating Hurricanes Helene and Milton.
If you don’t know about the Waffle House Index, welcome to one of the weirder wrinkles of life in the American south. Because Waffle House is committed to remaining open 24/7 except during extreme circumstances, the restaurant chain has become an unofficial marker for hurricane and storm severity. Basically, if a Waffle House is closed, that’s bad news. Relief efforts have even sought out closed Waffle Houses as markers that indicate which areas are in more dire need of immediate assistance.
“I could talk about the grim subtext here, from the idea that Americans place more trust in restaurant chains than their own government, to the fact that that same chain has somehow made ‘We make our employees work during natural disasters’ into a branding opportunity,” Oliver said on Sunday night. “But I’m going to choose to focus on the fact Waffle Houses have somehow become a light in the storm — 11 Scrabble tiles of backlit hope.”
To prove his point, Oliver showed off Waffle House’s official X feed, which combines genuinely helpful maps of closed restaurants with typical “waffle-pushing ads.”
“It’s jarring to have something so important conveyed in terms of Waffle House. It’s like finding out that NORAD relies on the ‘Oshkosh B’gosh Nuclear Threat Level,’” he joked.
As uncharacteristically kind as Oliver was toward the breakfast chain’s role in emergency response, the late night host was far more critical of its back of house ordering system. Unlike other restaurants, which rely on writing orders down or computerized systems, the Waffle House has long utilized its own distinct system, which involves placing pickles, mayo packets and jelly containers in strategic places to indicate orders. That’s a bridge too far for Oliver.
“Are you f–king kidding me? Are you f–king me?” Oliver yelled to his studio audience. “I don’t have space in my life for jelly choreography.”
The late night host then likened the confusing system to having a 15-year-old explain emojis. “If you work in Waffle House you might be a genius,” Oliver said. Speaking of the wild world of waffles, the late night host also mocked the restaurant for its customized, food-based music remixes. One of those songs is “There Are Raisins in My Toast,” a remix of The Four Seasons’ classic song, “Sherry.”
By the end of the top-of-show segment, Oliver saluted the chain. “In a world that seems to be spiraling out of control, there seem to be at least a few things that we can still count on: Waffle House will stay open to a genuinely irresponsible extent; jelly means eggs; if you put a butter container down right-side up, you’re getting a waffle,” Oliver concluded, replaying the raisin toast song. “And this song is never ever going to leave your head now.”
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