WaffleMouse

Best and Worst Waffles – Chain Restaurants

Don’t tell us about your favorite brunch waffle – we don’t want to hear it. Waffles not served exactly the same in multiple locations across state lines or multiple locations aren’t worth discussing.

Anyone who commits enough time and energy to a waffle can make a truly great one. That doesn’t impress the WaffleMouse. We respect those who deliver thousands of waffle an hour, not one or two every Sunday. That’s why we wanted to rate the best and worst chain restaurant waffles.

(Disclaimer: Just because our names rhymes with a famous waffle restaurant chain, we are in no way connected with any waffle provider. We chose the name because we are all about waffles and, of course, mice.)

From Best to Worst, here are our rankings of the available chain restaurant waffles:

1. Waffle House – The undisputed king of waffles (and our all-time favorite waffle restaurant). They reportedly serve more waffles than any other restaurant chain in the world. They should, they’re located on virtually every interstate exit in the country.

Actually, Waffle House no restaurants in California, Oregon or Washington (and a few other states). We feel sad for these states.

We highly recommend their new Lite Waffle made with buttermilk. Of course, it’s not so “Lite” when you cover it the way we do. We like to get the double waffle (Lite, of course) then add pecans and chocolate chips, and smother it all in warm syrup.

At Waffle House, the waffles are great, but the hash browns are even better. We like ours scattered, smothered, covered, diced and capped. (For those of you who don’t speak Waffle House, that means the potatoes are scattered on the grill with onions, cheese, tomatoes and mushrooms.)

To sound like an expert the next time you visit a Waffle House, here’s the lexicon you need to know:

o        Regular, Large and Triple – the three sizes of hash browns

o        Scattered – your potatoes are spread out on the fryer (versus the round, cake-like “normal” way they’re served)

o        Smothered – diced onions are mixed with your potatoes

o        Covered – cheese covers your browns

o        Chunked – the hash browns are topped with ham

o        Topped – your hash browns will come covered in chili – very daring for that morning meal, but great when you go straight to the Waffle House from the bar

o        Diced – a healthy addition when they add tomatoes

o        Peppered – spices up your hash browns with jalapeño peppers

o        Capped – mushrooms are a must for all combinations

o        All The Way – all of the above (not recommended for first-timers)

Just using some basic math, there are more than 3 million possible ways to eat hash browns at the Waffle House.

Wait, I thought This Was About The Best Chain Waffles

Sorry, we digressed. Back to the rankings…

2. Roscoe’s House of Chicken and Waffles – a Southern California staple, Roscoe’s is phenomenal, though they barely qualified for this ranking because last we checked they only had five locations (the minimum to be a chain in our book).

By adding chicken to the waffle plate, Roscoe’s has given us a reason to eat waffles for dinner without feeling guilty.

The chicken is better than the waffles, but the waffles are still great. We recommend eating at the Long Beach location so you can go next door and listen to good Jazz and have a drink after consuming some terrific fried chicken, red beans and a waffle.

3. The Egg & I – a breakfast and lunch only restaurant chain, serves a pretty tasty waffle. We highly recommend their Go Bananas Waffle, which comes with sliced bananas, walnuts and powdered sugar. If not for the chicken at Roscoe’s and the hash browns at Waffle House, The Egg & I would rank as the best chain waffle restaurant in the world.

4. Country Kitchen – not really dedicated to the waffle like our top 3 restaurants, the Country Kitchen still does a pretty good job with what they have. Their Belgian waffle with powdered sugar is pretty scrumptious and recommended if there’s no Waffle House in the neighborhood.

5. Huddle House – a Waffle House knock-off with designs on taking all the White Trash, drunks and criminal business. They serve a basic waffle with strawberries (canned or previously frozen, not fresh) and whipped cream. While the Waffle House clientele continues to skew to a demographic with a higher income, the Huddle House group seems a bit more seedy. The waffles are good, not great. If you want to go to a “house” for waffles, stick with Waffle House.

6. Denny’s – Belgian waffles with fruit topping – ho hum – though Denny’s seems to be making a comeback with their other breakfast foods. We just wish they’d give waffles the respect they deserve.

7. IHOP (International House of Pancakes) – Belgian waffles with fruit topping – a lot like Denny’s, and the fruit is nothing special. Stick with maple syrup and skip the whipped cream. (As waffle lovers, we are probably offended they’re not called IHOW – International House of Waffles.)

Did we miss your favorite? Please let us know by posting a reply below. Our only rules for this list of the best and worst waffle restaurants in the world is that the rated waffle come from a restaurant chain with at least 5 locations and that they serve waffles at all locations (sorry, Marie Callender’s).

Tags: best restaurants, breakfast, waffle restaurants