Waffle House — Restaurant in Smyrna

On August 28th, 2025 at 10:15 pm my boyfriend and I arrived to get some quick food before going home. Little did we know that was not the case. As soon as we sat down the guy working came over and immediately asked us if we were ready, not even giving us a chance to look at the menu. We politely said no and he walked away. He shortly came back asking us what we wanted to drink, I asked for tomato juice and the guy said “do we even have that” and I said “yes you do” and then my boyfriend orders sweet tea. The guy then proceeded to open the fridge stating “why do we even have this” “who even drinks this” he then proceeds to try and hand me the very small can of tomato juice . So I tell him that I need two cans with a cup. He gets that for me and then goes to help other tables. At this point my boyfriend and I have been sitting for at least 20 minutes with just a cup of tomato juice. Finally he come around with his tea. Eventually coming back to ask what we wanted to order. I ordered an all star special meal and my boyfriend ordered a Texas cheesesteak melt??? About 15 minutes later he comes back around giving us straws that are useless at this point and bacon. Another 30 minutes goes by as we watch people that got there after us get their food before us. Mind you it was empty when we arrived. I would say about 3-4 groups of people left before we were even able to. Finally the guy came around with A plate of food which is my boyfriends and says that mine is being cooked at the moment. Almost 10 minutes goes by and he comes back with one plate that includes eggs, toast, and hash browns. I had asked for an over medium egg and I got a fully cooked egg, my hash browns were extremely crispy, but my toast was fine of course. The guy come back over shortly asking if we wanted any jelly, I then asked for grape jelly. He comes back with literally one little thing of jelly as if that’s enough for two pieces of bread. At this point I am completely furious wanting to take action on this whole situation. I then eat 3 pieces of my toast and half of my hash browns. My boyfriend tried my egg and told me to not even try it because it tastes like shit. I still haven’t gotten my waffle that is supposed to come with my all star meal. We are both as angry as can be not caring about the waffle. We get up to go and pay. As we stand there waiting it is clear the neither of them know what they are doing as they both struggle to complete easy tasks. It takes about 10 minutes to pay. I got told to go in the car and wait by my boyfriend. But I was told that the guy did apologize for whatever but only because he knew I was mad. Continuously asking my boyfriend if I was mad. Finally we left the facility at 11:36. I don’t have words to describe how hard it was to handle this situation without causing a scene. I am greatly upset over this whole incident considering that I have been going here for years and have never had a problem with the staff, food, and service. This was absolutely unacceptable. I know this is Waffle House but I probably could’ve gotten better service in the back of an alley way. I have attached a photo of my food and how it looked. Something else irritating about this situation was that the bill end up being $30 for whatever reason. Even after the guy claimed to remove the waffle. After adding up the total should’ve been a little over $20. And no we did not leave a tip. Obviously price is the last thing to worry about especially while dining at Waffle House but considering everything else that happened this night, the wrong billing is just the...

We stopped in twice during our trip south, once on the way down and once on the way back up. The first experience:

I have been to waffle house before and knew what to expect with what was on the menu the only thing that usually changes is the service and the cleanliness of the building. Overall, the interior was quite a mess. 4 empty tables and a "bar" section all empty but dirty as can be. Servers took forever cleaning up their sections. The only person we really enjoyed interacting with was Shawn. He was polite we could tell he was being rushed so we reassured him to take his time with us as we weren't in a hurry. After we ordered we were made very uncomfortable by other wait staff. The one lady (older) kept staring at us while we were waiting for our food as if we weren't meant to be there. The other younger lady I guess was arguing about how she does everything there and no one pulls their own weight. Frustrated she started slamming dishes in the sink and mumbling curses under her breath about everyone. Very unprofessional, even for waffle house.

Second experience coming back up:

We entered the building and this time there was only one table that was not clean (we assumed they just left as we rolled up) There was one cook and one server. We decided to use the jukebox and were immediately judged by the staff for our choice of music that we paid to listen to. The service was again very odd and unprofessional, the young waitress was bussing the table behind us, and we could hear her talking about how she hated the cook, hated working with him, how she was going to quit and find a better job because she didn't want to deal with the Bu**. We also ordered drinks and didn't get them until we had almost finished our meals. For a location that only had two occupied tables this shouldn't have been hard. We also tipped I believe 10%-15% because of the poor service and were judged via body language about how much we tipped.

I would rather stop at the Dover Waffle House instead of this one next time I go down...

My husband and I walked in around 10pm for an unexpected date night, since all else was closed and we hadn’t been to a Waffle House in years, so we figured why not! There was one other booth of people there and one person at the bar. We sat ourselves in a booth on the opposite side connected to the cooking area and waited patiently, thinking as soon as they’re done serving the others, we would be served. Or at least offered a drink while we wait. There was an older woman taking orders and serving customers and one man cooking. Neither bothered to look up at us or acknowledge our presence but were laughing it up with the other customers. After almost thirty minutes of being ignored, we left. It doesn’t cost anything to be kind. The experience was ridiculous. I will NEVER be back, and will make sure to never recommend this Waffle House to anyone. Side note: we went to the Dover IHOP afterwards and had a fantastic experience with quick service, and the staff was incredibly kind. It was a breath of fresh air after the experience we...