Sunday, May 3, 2009

A Waffle House museum???


I'm still not sure I believe this report in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Are we sure it isn't April Fool season still?

Wichita, Kan., can claim the first Pizza Hut. San Bernardino, Cal., is home to the first McDonald’s. And Corbin, Ky., is on the map because of Colonel Sanders and the first Kentucky Fried Chicken.

Maybe fast food history buffs will flock to the strip mall-dotted byway that connects Decatur to Avondale Estates now that the DeKalb County Commission has made it official: the derelict Waffle House there has been designated a historic property.

It’s the home of the first Waffle House, and the company wants to turn it into a museum. Commissioners approved the request Tuesday after a company representative elaborated on plans to operate the facility at 2719 E. College Ave. as a center of breakfast history. The company is restoring the building to the state it was in when it opened in 1955.


What on earth could make anyone suppose that the first of a chain of greasy-spoon roadhouses should qualify as a museum? I've eaten many times at many Waffle Houses, and appreciate their fast service and reasonable prices . . . but a Waffle House museum? Oh, come on! Surely, in a recessionary economic climate, the company could find better uses for its money?

Peter

4 comments:

Shell said...

The company grew from that little building to a multi-billion dollar national enterprise. I should think that worthy of note. I couldn't help noticing that you didn't sneer at the Pizza Hut, McDonald's, and Kentucky Fried Chicken companies' preservation of their history. For a man who shows a lot of sense you've evidently not learned to NOT look in someone else's pocket. Would you rather they treat their business as a jobs program for the "economically disadvantaged" and by doing run it into the ground? It must not've occurred to you that if the company has the money to put into this then they must be making plenty despite the "recessionary economic climate". You should take a moment to reflect on the success of the business model before you pop off like that again.

Dirk said...

If they're making money, keeping their employees on the job, and not taking government money, why shouldn't they spend some of their money on whatever they want to?

Brian Dale said...

There's already a SPAM museum in Austin, Minnesota. It's operated by Hormel, the maker of SPAM.

It can be OK to have a little fun. ;)

Anonymous said...

I've been to a Nut Museum in Old Lyme, Connecticut, a Lightbulb Museum in Baltimore MD., a Guitar Museum on the border of Tenn. and Va., a pretzel museum in Penn., a stripper museum in Nevada, the Weems-Botts House (that'd be Parson Weems, the guy who wrote the George Washington cherry tree stories) in Dumfries, Va., the Crayola Museum at their plant in New Jersey, a host of local-famous-person-lived-here houses and lots more: all are worth it. Some are sillier than others --- a museum about nuts, fer cryin' out loud?!? --- but all have something to tell us. So a Waffle House Museum? Sure, if I'm in the area, I'll happily take a tour!