Here's How Much Waffle House Employees Really Make
When you're on the hunt for a big plate of hearty food for a cheap price, the first stop on your list might just be Waffle House. Though you may think that the longstanding chain that serves breakfast 24/7 is just known for serving good waffles, it was founded upon more than that. According to the official Waffle House site, the breakfast joint — which was founded by neighbors Tom Forkner and Joe Rogers Sr. in 1955 in a small Georgia neighborhood — had ambitions to create an experience that "focused on people on both sides of the counter."
Now, with over 60 years of business under their belt, Waffle House now has almost 2,000 nationwide locations that the Atlanta Journal-Constitution notes as serving up "341 strips of bacon, 145 waffles, and 127 cups of coffee" every 60 seconds of the day as well as divvying out about two percent of the food industry's amount of eggs. Likewise, on a lifetime scale, Insider reports that the restaurant yielding the infamous yellow signage has served an eye-popping amount of eggs that exceed 2.5 million as well as "1.3 million orders of grits."
With all of those delicious waffles, eggs, and hash browns being served up so fast and frequently, that should mean they have to have a high number of employees, right? And, more importantly, that would mean they have to pay them pretty good, too, right? Well, you're not too far off if this was your assumption.
On average, Waffle House employees get paid more than minimum wage
Surprisingly, Waffle House pays their employees more than expected, with Business Insider quoting Waffle House's CEO Walt Ehmer saying, "We've had to deal with differences in minimum wages, state by state," and that many of the restaurants employees are already earning above minimum wage because of this. But what does that actually translate to? For starters, Indeed has servers averaging an hourly wage of about $11.82, while cooks range anywhere between $11.26 to $11.57 per hour.
If that amount sounds enticing enough, then those with managerial experience will be happy to know that shift managers make a bit more with their average hourly wage coming in at $12.31. Restaurant managers, however, make significantly more with average amounts being around $15.71. And what about the general managers? Those who hold a general manager position rake in an average amount of $51,265 — which equates to about $27 per hour according to Indeed. Operations managers make just a little less coming in at $50,867 per year or roughly $26.50 per hour.
This amount varies based off of location and experience, of course, but if you're ever interested in working for the restaurant that never closes — even during inclement weather — this is what you can probably expect to make when starting out.