Diners vs. Waffle Houses I Hold Up with Dulcé Sloan & Josh Johnson

You're listening to Comedy Central. Hey, everybody, welcome to hold up with Dulce Sloan and Josh Johnson. That's us, by the way, I know, I was saying it like it was two other people that we were going to interview and talk to, But it's us. I don't know why I say my name like I forgot my name before I say my name. But we are here to discuss a really important topic today, something that's weighed on our

Well, well, well it's the waffle Houses of America.

Mm hmmm.

Because I don't believe waffle House is a international company.

I feel like if it is, we would have heard about it. I feel like.

Yes, because waffle house only operates. Like, the closest waffle house to hear is in Pennsylvania, and me and you know, my friend Ben ben Bergman shopped the Big Bergman. Me and Ben Bergman have contemplated, uh, renting a car to go. I think it's like a Scranton, Pennsylvania waffle house. Yeah, it's the closest one.

One of the best, one of the best outings you could probably have is hitting the six Flags on the way and then going to a waffle house. That sounds like an incredible weekend.

Well, you know you have to do the waffle house after six Flags.

Yeah, yeah, you don't want to.

Yeah, you want to lose your waffle house.

Yeah, you don't want to have a buy logical refund on all of your waffle house. I'll tell you right now, though, the thing that would make that trip better besides six Flags and then a waffle house is a six Flags and any diner along the way, because waffle house it doesn't stack up. Okay, what to an American institution of dinerism.

All right, listen, listen. This is how you know you have life fucked up. Okay, I'm gonna tell you this this is the reason you don't drink, okay, And I think you've only had like one drink in your life, right, No, I never drank. So you've never had alcohol, No, in your American Christian life, not one sip. You didn't have a rogue ut tea you know, irresponsible uncle.

I mean buncle's irresponsible, but he had drake.

Interesting. So the missing ingredient of waffle House is alcohol. So for a long time, when you first start going to waffle House, usually if you didn't go as a kid, you went in college. You start going to was like you've been out late with your friends, there's nothing else open, so you go to waffle House. It was a lot of food, it was super affordable, and you were drunk,

Okay, you know.

So they're out here, they're saving they're saving the children. It's what they're doing. They're helping people.

Would help me and then help me understand, right because in my in my experience, just from the outside looking in, Like I said, I've never drank before, so I'm not I'm not gonna act like I know what you're talking about and what I'm talking about. You know what you're talking about. I know what I'm talking about. And I've just noticed that in life, when someone has to be drunk for something, it's probably not as good as they think it is.

Oh no, no, no, no, no, I'm not talking about I've never been to a diner and then like this food is amazing. There's a lot of times hold on, let me finish, hold on, I remember my mom asked me to go to waffle House and it was like a Sunday morning, and I was like, are we gonna get drunk? First?

I'm sorry to interrupt, but is way too sophisticated of a word waffle house.

Listen, I'm Beyonce is too sophisticated a word to use for Denny's. Like That's what I'm talking about, because it's like, also there's diners, but it's like, is Denny's a diner or a restaurant? Is a diner or a restaurant, but a waffle house nigga, it's a waffle house, so, like you know what you're dealing with.

So this is just just for the listener, just just to make sure we've caught everyone up to speed. It seems clear that you are on the side of waffle house. I'm on the side of diner, and we're both coming at this thing with maybe an eight out of ten. Like, I don't really see our position shifting or changing, but I do plan to help you along get understanding why waffle house is uh is that where it's at all?

Right?

First of all, you mentioned ambions. I'm ambiance, the ambiance of fists, the of chokes, the abods of someone that might be let your food burn only because they are currently engaged in a fist fight.

Listen, I've never had burned food from the waffle house because I mean, sometimes you're hat but because I get my hash brown scattered, smothered and covered, so sometimes it'll be a little crispyer on the edges that I want it to be. But like, honestly, I can't. I don't know how often I've ever had burned food from a restaurant period.

I'm not talking about charge to an absolute Chris I'm saying it would have been perfect had somebody not jumped the counter.

Listen, I haven't seen have I seen a fight in a waffe House? Yes? Was it with the employees. I've never seen a waffle house fight with the employees. I know what happens. We all know what happens.

But no, we all have the same internet.

Right, but I've never seen I've never seen it. Also, what we can always credit the waffle house for waffle House employs more convicted felons than anyone has ever seen. If there's a man on it. First of all, if the dude on the grill don't look like he served at least five years, I don't want them cooking shit for me.

Yeah yeah, because that that comes with its own level of experience, Like now he's working with real ingredients and not prison ingredients. I understand what you're saying, but let me let me kick it to you. Why I think the diners are just far superior.

Because your bougie go ahead, because I'm boogie.

Okay. Look, all I'm saying is when someone tells me that they're about to give me steak, I just wanted to be steak.

You know.

When I get steak at a diner, I know that that's steak. Why I get steak at a waffle house that's burger. That's just burger.

No waf house one has steaks too. Why are you ordering a steak at a diner or a wah in the first place. You have set yourself up for failure. This is my issue with That's on you. You wanted a high quality steak from somewhere whose menu is thick like an encyclopedia. This is my issue with diners, and this has always been my issue with diners. Waffle house, it's breakfast and then like burger shit right, Like, I know there's a high turnover. This ship's coming out the door. Yeah,

First of all, how dare you slammer the name of diners by assuming that stuff is sitting there? Any good diner has the kitchen and has the freezer. That's like a Narnia. All right, there's just amazing stuff back there, but they're in this amount of space. And I'll tell you right now, what you think is the beast? I think is the beauty. All right. So when I see that chapter book laid out in front of me, I'm like, wow,

You're gonna get a grill cheese and a chicken out fred Oh, you fucking child.

I'm gonna get a grilled cheese. I'm gonna get spaghetti. I'm gonna go ahead and no real cheese against spaghetti. And you know what, you know what, just to top it all, just because I can, Because this is what options in life do for you, you know, because when you go to a diner, you're your own little Elon Musk, your own little Jeff Bezos. They're going to space. I'm out here having orange juice, chocolate.

Milk with a mon of crystal sandwich.

Amount of crystal sandwich.

And that's how because okay, and that's how you have a biological refund is chocolate milk, orange juice and I'm money Crystal Sani.

Okay. Also, this is this is another metric that I want to bring up because you you already brought up a point for waffle House that they employ a lot of X cons, they're leading employers of X cons and everything I will I will offer up to you. A lot of diners out there have some of the best cooks in the world that just are struggling right now. Right so, there are some cooks at diners that should be in some of those Michelin star restaurants. But you

Does that take skill?

No, it doesn't takes a ton of skill.

Tell me something on the diner minia gives me that I need skill for Okay, a.

Suit, I know, but it's a it's a no.

Do you really think that they are in the back of a diner making a stock from lobster shells and meat and then adding a cream and doing all this. It's it's still a restaurant that mass produces food you buy it from. Have you worked in a restaurant before.

I have worked at a restaurant before, y'all, and I can tell you right now that the best restaurants put love, time, care, attention into every dish. And so when I go to it, I I but.

If I'm getting a lobster bisk, that's five ninety nine. You did not put love and care into the sobster bisk. You opened a can.

Don't. First of all, don't don't act.

Like I'm not judging a matter of love. What I'm saying is there could be plenty of love, but what there was not was prep work and care and time involved. You can't there's too much stuff on the menu. This is a high volume situation because if you don't use a lobster bisk out of a can, say you don't sell out that lobster bisc it's easier to throw away a can of soup that's old than too Every every

Even if you think, because we don't know, we can't verify. Even if you think that all the lobster bisc and all the diners is canned, I'll tell you right now. To be able to go from type of food to type of food that also takes skill. All right, you're coming at me with a hot, delicious, veggie filled casadilla, and you're coming at me with some chicken alfredo that's just cooked to perfection. I would love I would love to see waffle House try to pull off both of those things.

Because waffle house knows they're laying. They have figured out what they are doing.

They have figured out what they're doing. No.

No, I'm talking about as a company, not as individual not as individual stores. Because I have been an example of waffle houses. I'm just like I was giving pure chaos on a plate.

Mm hm.

And I've been in some waffle houses. I was like, oh, somebody wiped down the edge of this. Somebody gave me some presentation of that. You see what I'm saying. Every experience is different, but every diner is different. But every diner, to me, every diner menu feels like pure chaos. It's like there's too many there's too many things in this menu. How was all this food in your kitchen once you?

Why would you want less good? Why are you talking about me?

As? It's like, what's that? I don't know. I'm trying to get the saying right where it's like, oh, it's like a master of none situation.

Okay, okay, so how's that?

Let me have the phrase goes.

It's a jack of all trades, master of none.

Right, So if you're in here making egg rolls, right, m hm, you're making egg rolls and and Thanksgiving dinner. Yeah, and pasta in case it is, and dry nachos because the nachos are always dry. Always try always draw the number of times that I have been just given just a just the sands of time. Nacho. There's a thousand things on your menu, so it's like, oh, there's spanna, copada and chili. What the hell is going on in here? So jack of all trades. But yeah, I cannot wait.

Ate twice you saw people change shifts.

Oh, there was a shift change. There was definitely a ship change. We were in there talking for like probably like seven hours, just hanging out. Like the sun came up. I was like, well, we might as well have breakfast now we're in this bitch. So it's like, but that was the other great thing about a waffle house. White house is never gonna kick you out unless you're acting a fool. Yeah, if they're not super busy, a waf

No, don't do that don't do that because you love waffle house too much.

Because it's not like it's not a love thing.

It's like you came with the loving attitude of like a mob. That's like, look, everybody fights sometimes, and Pete, there's fighting. There's fighting overseas. They're fighting hit a war right now, they're fighting. They fighting bars. I don't understand why my baby fighting means he gotta be suspended because you you came with this thing of like singing a loud waffle house. But waffle house versus regular dins has more fights per capita, all right, there are more punch

Want factors and statistics. You're not gonna come in here and act like.

I mean, if we're if we're putting the Dennis of the world and the I Hops of the world, you know, listen asking if we're doing that. I'm just saying, when we talk about virality, there are more viral videos of some ass whoopings and some waffle houses than there are at the eye Hops. I'm not saying it doesn't happen. I'm saying that the Denny's and the eye Hops and the places that just have.

You have, but you have to understand that like eye hops close, Denny's close. So when you're dealing with a business that is open during the drunk people time, you're going to have more altercations just because you're open during the drunk people time. You're open during fight time, you're open during shoot up, the club time. Now because the eye hoops that are open late. If you take eye hops that close at ten or nine and a twenty four hour eye hop, I've seen plenty of altercations in

Okay, but I think that there's something to be said. This is also where the diners, the spectrum of diner that we're in right now, it just it outclasses waffle house because some diners do close at a late hour. Some of them close at once, some of them close at two, and that's a little period of closing. Just that little period closing saves you so much because now there's time to come back in and meal prep, the staff gets to rest. There's no one am to seven

No, you're getting a shift, that's it. If your shift is one am, union, your shift is one am. If your shift is from twelve to twelve, your shift is from twelve to twelve. Some of the worst service I've had is in a restaurant that's empty in the middle of the afternoon. An mty restaurant at four PM is

I've heard of the waffle House hurricane index. You can tell it for the people, for the people that don't know. But so I'm already with you. Okay, I'll let me.

Let me, let me give the folks the full google able definition straight from your Wikipedia page. Okay. The Waffa House Index is an informal metric named after the Waffa House restaurant chain to determine the effect of a storm and the likely scale of assistance required for disaster recovery. It was coined by former administrator Craig Fugate of the Federal Emergency Management Agency aka FEMA. The metric is unofficially

Ahead, all that you have proven. Just now, what is that FEMA is in shambles?

Shut all right, the hell up.

Because it's set the hell out house. You know, fever's not doing well.

It's an in now listen, in formal it Basically, it's like, okay, this is a colloquial kind of It's like, you know how like all the birds fly away before a tsunami comes. Yeah, yeah, No, one's looking to birds. There was an earthquake, a tsunami is coming. But if these birds fly to cool, that's your indicator. You see what I'm saying. If you tell me waffle house is closed because the weather is so bad, I'm gonna go, oh shit, we got to get the hell up out of here. Already boarded up my windows,

If anything, this is an indication that waffle houses stay too open.

That's not that that doesn't make any sense.

It makes total sense. A place should open and close in a way. That isn't such an indicator. It would be like it would be like saying, oh, I know, I know this, Uh, this guy right this this uh, this gentleman who does a lot of drugs. We all usually is not is not concerned about anything in life. So then if he gets concerned, you know, it's bad. It's like yeah, but also his level of concern doesn't doesn't really pique my interest because he's dealing with a whole bunch of other stuff over there.

I understand you're saying that waffle house is a drug addict.

No, no, I'm not saying waffle house is a drug act. I'm saying that it shouldn't take a hurricane to break through normal procedure. I think that maybe what.

Do you think should have what do you you don't think it should be? You don't think any restaurant should be open twenty four hours?

Not I'm not saying any and every I'm just saying, for the sake of just when I go to a waffle house, for the sake of everyone there, I think it would be best if this place closed for four hours. I don't know, like like.

Now I have been I have been to one where we walked in and like, we're closed, and we went your waffle house.

Yeah yeah. So she's like, there are some out there I just don't know about.

No, I think they just decided they were done. Like that's the other thing. It's like they just they just anythink they just decided they needed a break. Because she's like, we're closed, and I was like, your waffle house, and she was like, but the reason they were closed is because they had just gotten robbed. So then we had to go to the white House across the street. The reason no, don't do that. So you know the twenty four hour McDonald's, you know, after a certain time you

And just for people who don't know, the check cashing place glass is not just a type of bulletproof ish glass. It's also glass that has a little compartment in it so that you can put your money in and then turn it, and then they can put your product in and then turn it. And that that also stops hands from having to exchange, you know, because then when hands exchange, it means they have easy access to you, which means they could bring in use a.

Weapon, right, so they can slide a gun underneath, they can grab you by your hand. But I can't tell you the food you get out of Popeyes or a church is chicken with check cash and place glass. It's never as good as the as the experience of having to It never matches up it.

Did you realize, like yeah, yeah, it feels like the robberies that took place. There were four refunds. Jevy like like like the chicken.

That I've had, no give me my money back.

Give me my money back, And I don't want.

All of the money. I want May eleven sixty two, that's all I want. One of my homeboys was like, how can you do diners versus waffle house? Waffle House is a diner, and I was like, but you know that waffle house is waffle house. Like let's stop playing with it, like, let's let's call it.

Yeah. Yeah, it's essentially like a calling when people are like, actually dolphins are mammals.

Yeah, it's like yeah, but like the square rectangle thing.

Yeah, because if I had the choice between a diner and a white house, I'm going diner every time.

I'm going White House. I'm going White House because it's like I know, when I go to the White House, ninety percent of the time, I get two things.

Okay, when I go to a diner, no.

No, no, no, what's your waff house order?

What's my waffle house order? I guess I get the all star thing, the all star Yeah, yeah, the thing that is at the top of the menu.

I think, Okay, this is okay. So what we've established here is you are not a person who goes to the White House. How you get trash browns?

I get them flat, don't. I don't know what the listen.

Listen, listen. You have not been to enough waffle houses. You don't even have your hash brown order down.

Waffle houses. I get my hash browns on the way they come. I don't. I don't ask them to be extra.

You don't get your hash browns customized.

No, because because here's the thing, the hash browns that you get at a diner. You can just go crispy, or you can go hey, can you you know, put a little gravey on whatever the graves station. I don't know what people do.

I'm just saying I put hot sauce in a little syrup on mine, on your hash browns, just just as means pepper, Yeah, hot sauce gotta go, and just a little, just a little, just a whisper, just a little, you know, just petals in the wind of just a little bit of syrup, just because like the whole milk just be like sometimes two but scattered, smothered. Actually I get scattered, smothered, covered or scattered smother covered and peppered.

I mean, if you really got to cover up your hash browns like that, you didn't do them.

Right, ma'am, ma'am, Like, ma'am, do you know any of these do you know what any of these words mean that I just said scattered? So when you get waffle House hash browns, they'll come, they'll put them in the ring so they'll be like formed. Right, Yeah, I get mine scattered, so because for me, when they're in the little ring, they're not all crispy because they're not. So I like mine scattered, so it's crispyer because it's like

Sounds like shot what it sounds like you can get them shot capped?

Why they call them cat because it's mushrooms.

Just say with mushrooms.

Listen. It's a whole little cute little thing. I'm trying to remember whether the one when you put add gravy to it, what's it called.

Maybe maybe I'm just being biased, but I feel like when I go to a diner, I go to diner specifically for breakfast food, you know. So that's why I compare it to a waffle house in my mind, because the same way that I go to waffle house, I get that all star, I go to a diner and I get, you know, two eggs scramble with cheese, bacon crispy, and I get hash browns and then some toast if they have it, and and I'm easy, I'll get some.

But it's not it's not the same.

It's not It's not like, I don't know how I describe this in a way that that won't maybe sum it all up. The way that it's done at a waffle house, to me is is a bit it too familiar, if that makes sense.

So familiar. Yeah, So when I go to you feel like you could cook it.

Yeah, when I when I get my order, all breakfast food you can cook. Yeah, but there's something you can make.

No, you can cook it. No, you can make your own eggs. We are not talking about. This is not French cuisine. This is not a soup desure. Okay, this is not a fine no fine dining experience.

Which all diners have.

By the way, let me say something. Is there a Michelin star restaurant that's only doing breakfast?

I mean nothing, I'm aware.

Exactly because it's eggs. It's eggs. It's fucking eggs. Okay. If you think that you every man makes breakfast, I don't know if that's the only thing we teach y'all how to make as a society.

I've made.

But a man can make breakfast, you understand. So it's like I because like I love you. One of our favorite things that've been having a hard time to find in New York Patti sausage. I love a Patty sausage.

I saw a quadruple order one time, and when that band stood up, his gun fell out of his waistband like.

That, that's so funny. There was no room for the gun.

There was no room for the gun anymore. So this dude, this dude got quadruple order of hash brows ate them all and when he got up, the gun was like it's too tight. I can't I can't be in there, listen.

I just I know there's people like listening that are just like, we are so casual about talking about a gun, and it's like, y'all have to remember, like I grew up in Georgia, Josh grew up in Louisiana, and we both grew up in America. So if you have an issue with what we're talking about, yeah on, you forgot where you live. Yeah, you forgot where you live. I have no sympathy for you. You forgot where the hell you live. You need to calm down. You need to

A guard falling to h a gun falling to a tile floor has a very particular clatter that oh yeah, everybody got real quiet.

Oh because you're like, oh that's not okay, okay, we know we anybody just got to go, oh sorry, my bad.

I just you know, he was just like hey, my bad. And then then he tried to put it back and it was not going easy. That gun did not want be at his wife's band anymore. I know, I wish I was gonna shoot himself, Like I was, like, it's well those things where he really like hiked up his chest and everything trying to make room, and.

I started just because like he can't hold it walking out. Yeah, yeah, it's gonna look crazy. Just this's just let's just rec let's just recap and just think about this. Okay. Usually when we have these conversations, we can have things to say about the one thing and things to say about the other thing. We have been talking about waffle House most of the time because it's an engaging conversation, Okay, because we know that wilf House is for the people. Okay.

I understand that we've let waffle House dominate most of the conversation because it shit ticular episode. But I think that it's because I really wanted to give you the the time and attention for your waffle House arguments, to let you sort of like put yourself on the grill and get burned, because I think that they're not coming

We see the issues.

Hold on, we already have diners that are better. Don't bring that way now, Okay. Wow, I think that's what's happening.

Wow mm hmm. The disrespect. That's all hearsay I have given you that, not even hearsay. That's Josh say, Okay, we don't know why these other states don't have a waiffe House. You don't know. We also, no, no, no, you can't say that the reason waffle House isn't another state is because of how wilf House has been presented to the people. You're the proof for that. You don't know. In the words of my mama, you don't know. You don't know because you don't know. Okay, But I think

Okay.

It's keeping out the little guy.

The little guy, the little the little mega corporation that FEMA uses to track how bad a storm is.

You cannot use FEMA. Now why because you use because you were like that sorce of just closed. No, no, no, you can't use it FEMA to defend your argument when you were just shitting on FEMA for using for Wilfe House being with you can't do that.

Now I can do I can do both because the association is still there.

That that's not no, no, no, that's not right. That's not right.

That's not right to deny that the association existed. I'm just saying it means femas and shambles, but it's also tracking something that's not a little guy. It's a mega corporation. So that's me throwing out my there's there's more likely big waff House. There is big diner. Okay. I think that aud these many different types of diners for them to form a coalition of eggs, bacon and hash browns and Monte Crystal sandwiches to keep out the houses. Waffle House has.

The power and a stuffed flounder and your Thanksgiving dinner and your calamari, and I everything I've ever had at a diner tasted reheated?

Is that here saying?

Is that?

Is that here saying?

Now I've worked in a restaurant.

Before, and a restaurant, but I didn't know anything about one. You chapters Lengthen.

There's too there's too much food. Your burgers might get in heavy rotation. Your breakfast stuff is definitely your eggs are gonna constantly be gone.

Yeah, but legs, by the way, not just a bunch of egg juice? Right?

Uses? Whose us.

Are we sure about that?

You see the basket of eggs when they're cooking your breakfast. You see them?

You see a basket of eggs. Do we see them use?

Yes, negro, watch them. You've never seen them cook.

I've seen them cook.

They're right there. You're just being rude. Now. You know, good and damn well they be using them eggs. You know, good and damn well they be using them eggs. The eggs don't just sit there. You've seeing them refill the basket. Okay, you've seen.

Them reach those tar plastic eggs. How do we know?

Get off my internet. Get off my internet. Get off my internet. I will not do this with you. You can see them take the egg out the basket, crack it, put it in a bowl of max scrambled eggs, or put it directly on the grill where some person is going to have just the raw sunnyside ashy ashy.

Yeah, it's you know, hearsake because you said that, I heard it.

Wow. Okay, no no, no no no, you had to Josh say, I had my duel say so I will not be.

I mean, we have to give it to the people. All right, now, we have to give it to the people.

It's are you team? Because this is diners and so this is diners. Mean like any restaurant ends of the word diner or are we including I Hop and Denny's are those diners?

Personally? I find them to be diners.

I know it's steak and shake is a diner.

Yeah.

I think when we were talking about this, I don't I know, I wasn't considering the ie Hops or the Dennys. I was thinking waffle House versus you're true true diners.

Okay, So this is what we'll do, just to make it clear for the people as we wrap up. All right, okay, when we go diners versus well, I want you to keep in mind is that we're just talking about diners, like not not chains. So you know, you don't have to give up your Golden Corral, your Denny's, your I Hoops or anything. We're just gonna have inde diners versus

I'm sure the employees were the people that cared the least that a gun just hit the floor. But I can say the number of times I've seen a fight in a waffle house, it has It's been less than ten calm down. I've never been worried like I was in a Like I saw a fight in an I hop and I was like, Oh, we need to run. Yeah, they're fighting in an eye hop. This is this is a wild situation, right they mean it like ever walked into somewhere and be like there's fight energy in here, Like there's just like.

Yeah, if I walk in and I smell like just the room smell yeah, spilled hennessy. I think that there's there's definitely something that's about something either already happened or something's about to happen.

Like when you smell dark liquor in a room, just like like.

Yeah, and you smell it like off the floor like not. I'm not talking about on people's breath or like pouring drinks or I'm talking about the whole room has a hint.

You're like, no, we gotta go.

I just want to thank everyone for listening. I appreciate the points that you made, and I hope you can see where I'm coming from that diners are far superior.

And you you were not able to prove. You did not present any evidence to prove that diners are superior. All you did was try to bad mouth the waffle house. You didn't give me anything to do. All you said was diners have a lot of options, and I order food like a child.

So we're gonna hand it over to you, the listener. All right, we appreciate you. We thank you for tuning in.

Thank you for listening to hold up. It's always great to get Josh being wrong on wax and.

I'm Jill Day's song I'm Josh Johnson.

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