Impetus: Atlanta-area Waffle House getting a 60 on sanitation score makes the news.
Yes, we’re all very aware of the importance of sanitation scores in general, but this is also Waffle House we’re talking about. Everyone who’s ever been to Waffle House has their ironic stories about Waffle Houses; personally, I enjoy recalling the time I watched an elderly waitress set her cigarette down (this was obviously back when indoor smoking was still allowed) carefully at the end of the counter so she could take some patrons’ orders, before proceeding to pick it back up and take a long drag after submitting her ticket.
The thing is though, and this should all be taken tongue-and-cheek obviously, but it’s Waffle House we’re talking about here. A Waffle House that scores a 60 is like the Capital Grille scoring a 100. There’s really only so much quality that’s possible at a Waffle House, and expecting scores that are higher than a 60 is roughly the equivalent of wishing to win the lottery.
I mean, who hasn’t heard of the myth of putting jeans in the freezer? Clearly, the person who put their jacket in the ice machine at this Waffle House was just trying to de-funkify their jacket in a similar manner. Sure, there’s the issue of their gross jacket touching all the ice that would be potentially served to patrons, but I’m sure they were convinced that they could “dig around it.”
Ultimately, I’m not condoning a bad score, but at the same time, I think it’s silly that it’s newsworthy. Really now, a 60? That’s like eating off a bleached table, compared to some of the horror story scores that I can recall. There’s a ton of discreet, small Chinese joints scattered throughout the Metro Atlanta area that have scored in the 40s, 30s, and in this case, the 20s. I can’t find the link to it, but there was once a place that literally scored 18; out of 100.
Hearing those scores, a 60 doesn’t seem bad at all.
In the end, it’s a Waffle House. Not Nobu, or Ruth’s Chris. You know exactly what you’re getting when you get to one, regardless of what kind of number is printed on a yellow sheet of paper and affixed to the wall.
