How to Run My Waffle Houses, Mickelson: Take Care of Carla Jean

Phil Mickelson wants to own my Waffle Houses. And by "my" I mean the Waffles Houses in Nashville and surrounding environs that I have been eating at after midnight for a decade. Why? Because he and several other men believe the 105 restaurants in Tennessee and three other states currently owned by SouthEast Waffles are good investments. How good? They've bid $20.2 million for the chain.

That's a lot of waffles.

So far as pro golfers go, Mickelson isn't the first golfer you'd suspect to be involved in a Waffle House purchase. Not with John Daly, Boo Weekley, and J.B. Holmes tearing up golf courses throughout the Southland. Daly's going to be the most disappointed to hear about this. As if Phil Mickelson hadn't taken enough money from him on the course over the past 15 years, now he's got to think about him when he stops in a Southern town that isn't big enough to boast a Hooters? But how will Phil make sure he fits in with his new purchase and doesn't come off as a latter-day Yankee carpetbagger swooping in to buy up our assets? I've got the advice for him.

But maybe this isn't much of a surprise. Mickelson's button-down corporate persona has always conflicted with his own personal battle of the bulge. Mickelson is the PGA Tour's own Oprah, one day thin, the next day wobbling down the fairway like a corpulent cow in need of milking. So would it really surprise you if you rolled into a Waffle House at two in the morning and saw Mickelson diving into a big stack of pecan and syrup covered waffles? I don't think so.

That's the great thing about Waffle House, more than just about any restaurant in the country, it's a melting pot. We're all scattered and smothered. Rich, poor, educated, and uneducated, drunk or sober, Waffle House is the DMV of fine dining. And I mean that in the most positive way possible. Founded in 1955, the chain now boasts over 1,500 franchises from just across the Ohio River to, wait for it, Arizona.

Yep, Arizona. Phil's a west-coaster. As much time as he's spent in the South, I feel like there are things he doesn't know about the chain, things that only someone born and raised south of the Mason-Dixon line would know. I've alternated those points of knowledge with helpful ideas for how Phil could mix in the Mickelson life with the Waffle House culture. We're still a little leery of carpetbaggers down here, even if they have a green jackets in their carpetbag.

So here we go.

1. Every woman who works there is named Phyllis or Carla Jean. I don't know how this is possible. Waffle House is a private corporation so their corporate charter is hidden. Maybe the founders required this as an honor to their mothers? Maybe every waitress has to legally change their name? I don't know.

I just know it's true.

Around 1994, Waffle House got an infusion of Asian waitresses down in the Gulf Coast region. I thought this might lead to a change.

Nope.

I sat down in Biloxi, Miss., one late night in 2006 after gambling at the Beau Rivage casino. An Asian woman took my order. Her name?

Carla Jean.

I'm not lying.

2. Don't change the seating rules. One of the great things about Waffle House is the egalitarian nature of the table assignments. There is no call-ahead seating, no better treatment for those with more money, no way to get food without the time-honored and advanced system Waffle House implements: Waiting until a damn seat opens.

Do you know how great this is in the 21st century?

Is there anything better than somebody wearing a tuxedo having to wait on a guy who hasn't bathed in four months to vacate a booth so he can eat? The guy in the tuxedo keeps checking his Rolex. He's furious. Meanwhile the guy in the tattered jeans luxuriates over his coffee.

This is the only time tuxedo has ever had to wait for anything in the past year.

I love it.

3. Every day Waffle House sells 2 percent of all the eggs consumed in America. And most of those eggs will be prepared by grumbling ex-felons with tattoos covering their arms.

Waffle House cooks like to talk, they're jovial fellows. Particularly about sports. Most people take sports arguments in stride, as part of the ordinary course of work. But never argue with a Waffle House cook that Pacman Jones didn't deserve his NFL suspension. Or anything else that might be controversial.

They have sharp knives and little to lose. That's a bad combination.

4. Don't change the decor.

With its stylish white and yellow interior, brown floors that all resemble a movie theater parlor from 1936, and booths that don't move, Waffle House reminds you of those futuristic houses that everyone was supposed to end up living in around 1954. Only they've never changed. Or been washed.

Some people, such as your stylish wife Amy, may argue it's time for an update. She may even bring consultants with her that support her opinion. Fire drivers at these consultants from 200 yards away while they stand in the center of the fairway with a shield that is large enough to only cover half of their body.

Eventually they're agreeing with you. Or your wife is calling you off. Either way everyone wins.

5. Add the U.S. Open Menu item.

When you order the meal, the waitress brings it to your booth, lets you smell it, allows you to pick up the fork, and then, just when you're about to cut into the waffle, she takes it away.

This will be a real hit. Honestly, it will make us like you more if you make fun of yourself.

You could also appear in advertisements shirtless, but that would be going too far.

6. If they bring you the wrong food, shut up and eat it. Never send anything back.

Look, it's four in the morning and Waffle House never closes. Christmas, New Year's, Thanksgiving. 365 days a year, 24 hours a day, 8,765 hours a year on constant repeat.

When you order, you're either drunk, unemployed, or skipping bail. Someone is waiting on you who has nine children and three ex-husbands. Do you really need to send your waffles back because they have pecans on them?

No.

You don't.

Just pick the damn pecans off and eat them. Or your waffles will come back with a new topping.

Syphilis.

7. Consider renting out Waffle House as a wedding chapel.



This actually happened in a Waffle House parking lot in Dacula, Ga.

It's all about monetizing your assets. And there's gold in that smoking hot asphalt parking lot, Phil, gold.

8. Don't go to the bathrooms after midnight. Ever.

It's better to urinate on your leg and pretend you spilled a glass of water.

In law school, a friend of mine went to the bathroom wearing a Yankees hat. An older Southern man wearing jeans, boots with steel toes, and a Skynyrd t-shirt, stood at the urinal.

"You a Yankees fan?" the man drawled.

"Yes," my friend said.

Tobacco juice hits the urinal. The man turns around, zips his fly, gives my friend a look that would break eggs, and tightens his huge belt buckle.

"Why do you have a belt buckle with a bullet on it?" my friend asks.

"Because I'm a fan of bullets," the man said.

9. Permit the T-Bone steak to come prepared as you would like.

Most restaurants ask you how you want your steak cooked. At Waffle House, you get a T-Bone that appears to have come from a cow that was harvested in the days immediately after Chernobyl.

Once I ordered a T-Bone steak medium rare.

Carla Jean chortled.

"Honey, we do brown," she said.

10. "If you could stack all of the sausage patties we serve in one day, it would reach the TOP of the Empire State Building! (Did you want grits with that?)"

This is direct from the Waffle House Web site. I don't even have anything to say to this. Just, wow.

They used to say, "The sun never sets on the British Empire." That's so 19th century. The door never closes at Waffle House.

Remember that, Phil.