Waffle House — Restaurant in Virginia

It’s Waffle House so I know what to expect. However, when our usual location, West Broad near Glenside, was slammed with people waiting outside we decided to try one closer to home, this location, Parham Rd @ Staples Mill. This location was way less of a wait. We were able to get a seat at the low bar pretty quickly, however it was a mess. The server said to have a seat and she would clean it. Which she did. She also let us know that it was just her and one other waiting tables. 15 minutes later and we haven’t had our order taken, no coffee, nothing. Our server was working the cash register, getting to go orders ready and waiting on people picking up their to go orders. During this waiting period I counted no less than 8 employees behind the counter. 2 to 3 appeared to be cooks, the 2 servers, 1 guy walking around asking who was waiting on what areas, 1 girl was washing dishes the entire time and a guy that appeared to be a manager, maybe a supervisor, that popped out of the back twice the entire time. A couple of new employees showed up, shift change! One of them came out to start working but took the first 10 minutes to hug several of the other employees and to chat. Again the question was posed again as to who was covering what areas. One of the original 2 servers pointed at us and told the new server, “these people have been waiting for a long time”. To which her natural reaction was to walk away and start a conversation with another employee and then proceeded to walk past us and clean a table.Finally, our order was taken by our original server and we got our coffee and water. The guy who was asking who was covering what areas ask what our order was, grabbed our food that was ready, and got me a refill for my coffee. The food was on the extra greasy side, even for a Waffle House, but it was as we ordered it otherwise. I don’t blame the servers or the cooks for the terrible experience. The blame lies squarely on a piss poor manager. No one knew what they were supposed to do to cover. This was apparent when the new Manager came in and asked once what area they were covering and the told them what they were covering. I will be sticking the West Broad location and suffer the extra time getting seated...

We tried a different location today just to change things up. We have 2 Waffle Houses pretty near to us. Even though this one has been here for years, it's still the newer of the two. There was a little bit of a wait, especially since they have the bar and table closed due to Covid. Very friendly greeter who took our names. When we got sat we our waitress was fairly quick to us to grab our drink order. I ordered a double, smothered, covered and chunked hashbrown with a grilled cheese with tomato, my daughter got the All Star and wife a Texas Toast with Hashbrowns and a Reese's waffle. I was a little disappointed with my grill cheese oh, one of the things I really tend to like with Waffle House grilled cheese is the tomato is usually pretty warm, unfortunately my grilled cheese was cold. In one of my pictures you can see that the cheese is actually not even melted. They also gave me a large slice of tomato with the stem piece/core, not sure actually what its called. I actually had to pull it out and bite around it. It was also the smallest size double order I have ever seen. Both my wife's and my daughter's hash browns we're larger than mine. I asked the waitress but she told me that it was a double order. My daughter is pretty much a plain Jane, but she wanted to try ham "chunked" in her hash browns. When she got her hashbrowns they had onions, which she doesn't like and didn't ask for. Also why we were there we could also hear the manager apologizing to a customer with apparently made a very large order for takeout came, picked it up, went home and then half of the order was missing. Then I could hear the manager and one of the cooks kind of arguing about who cooked what. When leaving my 9yr old daughter even commented to me, "Well this is what we get for not going to our Waffle House." Not sure if it was just one of these mornings oh, I like to give them the benefit of the doubt I mean we don't expect much it is just a Waffle House. Have to say our waitress was very sweet and even though there weren't a lot of tables she was busting her hump trying to take care of everyone. But next time we want to get some hash browns will probably just go back to our normal spot...

I was always happy here, especially at the one close to my job. It’s clean, staff are friendly and efficient and the food is good and decently-priced. Until 2 nights ago. I find the night time atmosphere, service, and food are totally different. One night I was waited on then the waitress left, never said a word. Another girl sat my plate in front of me and walked off. I ordered a steak, not big but usually delicious and so tender, as I ask for medium rare. No sides, just the meat. It came and was hard and dried up. I said something to the waitress but she just walked off and wouldn’t come back. Only 4 customers, both already eating (and left before me), and 1 waitress, 1 cook. She finally came my direction and I asked for my waitress, finding she had already gone home. I also found she tried to charge me $13 for a $7 steak and glass of water. She corrected the price and gave me my receipt to show a manager interest as there are none at night. I have not had a chance to go in yet and the phone never goes to a person. I’m a bit unhappy. I won’t go...