Saturday, April 27, 2024

#WaffleHouseinOxfordMS

Today's post highlights Lafayette County, MS, retail.

Longtime followers of mine know that I'm from Hernando, MS, and my alma mater is Ole Miss. (Just graduated in May!*) 

(* -- Okay, so I wrote the introduction to this post on a piece of paper circa late 2019/early 2020. The intention was obviously to write and publish the post soon after graduation... well, "May" in that sentence refers to May of 2020, a mere four years ago. Oops. Anyway, continuing on.)

This connection between city and college isn't unique, of course; there are many other people who meet both of these criteria, one of whom is University of Mississippi law professor David W. Case. Well, Case may not be from Hernando, but he did live there for a number of years, commuting the one-hour distance back and forth between the Oxford campus and the DeSoto County seat every day. Finally, in his eleventh year of teaching at Ole Miss, Case uprooted from his Hernando home and settled in Oxford. Immediately, he noticed two things about Oxford that set it apart from Hernando, which he shared on Twitter via the prompt "without naming your city, what is your city known for":




The City of Oxford, Case claimed, was known for (1) "having the very worst Kroger on Planet Earth," and (2) "not having a Waffle House." A profile on Professor Case from Parents of College Students explains that "Case shares his sense of humor with the Oxford community on Twitter. According to Case, the purpose of Twitter is to express humor and find humor in more serious topics. If Twitter isn't making him laugh, he's not enjoying it."

In 2016, the Kroger in Hernando tripled in size and reopened as the first (and only) Kroger Marketplace in the state of Mississippi, something that likely spoiled Case in comparison to the smaller Oxford store. In addition to Kroger, Case "spent a lot of time at Hernando's local Waffle House because there wasn't much else to do and he genuinely enjoys the food. Naturally, it became one of his Twitter bits."

Hernando Waffle House, May 2019



"If Oxford didn't want me to tweet about it not having a Waffle House all the time it should have gotten a Waffle House before I moved here," Case wrote in March 2019. Similarly, after Whataburger took the lead in an Ole Miss Twitter poll asking users to choose between it and Waffle House as the most desired restaurant not currently in Oxford, Case proclaimed that the university would be relocating to Hernando, "which already has a Waffle House and as a bonus a Super Kroger," to be henceforth known as "the University of Hernando also affectionately known as Ole Hern," concluding "I did warn you guys." As you can tell -- his tweets were definitely very funny.

Not long after Case moved to Oxford, Kroger actually did announce it would be expanding the Oxford store into a Marketplace of its own; ultimately the Marketplace designation didn't come to fruition, but the store did undergo a significant expansion, reopening in late 2020. I have pictures of that entire project over on my flickr account. As for bringing a Waffle House to Oxford, on the other hand... Case's Twitter antics played a much larger role in that story. It all began on April 4, 2019, when Oxford's mayor, Robyn Tannehill, followed Case on Twitter. Case's immediate response: "omg you guys I am SO about to get us a Waffle House in Oxford."


According to a later interview with Tannehill, "it was a slow Friday afternoon, so Tannehill thought, 'Why does Oxford not have a Waffle House? Which is a fabulous question.'" So, sure enough, she proceeded to do two things: first, she responded to Case with "Challenge Accepted" and the hashtag #WaffleHouseinOxfordMS. Second, she submitted a contact request form to Waffle House corporate. In the interview, she summarized her message as follows: "Hey, I’m the mayor of Oxford. We’ll have a parade when you get here. We can’t be the only SEC town without a Waffle House. I’m out front, let me know when you’ll be here."


Mayor Tannehill's submission to Waffle House corporate

What started as a lighthearted Twitter joke was actually gaining some serious, if tongue-in-cheek, traction. Professor Case was beside himself, excitedly tweeting, "IT'S HAPPENING" in all-caps. Within hours, #WaffleHouseinOxfordMS was trending worldwide.



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Waffle House took notice of the hashtag and the excitement brewing in Oxford. Just 10 days later, a care package arrived on Tannehill's doorstep at City Hall, "complete with a waffle maker, waffle mix, syrup, two different T-shirts, hats, coffee mugs, and a 'Waffle-Opoly' board game." In addition, according to the Oxford Eagle, "Almost immediately after Waffle House retweeted Tannehill and Case's exchange, the chain contacted the mayor to set up a call with its CEO, Walt Ehmer." Tannehill "honestly thought someone was playing a joke on her." The article continues:

The whole situation is one Tannehill admitted was rare, and bizarre and entirely unlikely -- but for her, it shows the power of positive social discourse.

"What I think it demonstrates more than anything is that people are tired of venomous, hateful dialogue," she said. "Nobody 'decided to start a Waffle House campaign.' It was just fun and games, but now it's turning into something real."



Close-up of the thank you card sent with the care package

Mayor Tannehill wasn't the only one to receive a Waffle House care package; Professor Case did, too. As shown below, his swag included a few different pieces, including a tie, insulated cup, keychain, and novelty pins. Oh -- and a nametag. A feature story on WLBT notes that they both received an official Waffle House nametag: "one that says 'David/Batman,' and one that says 'Robyn.' Case argues that Tannehill should be Batman since she has the power connections, but she insists that it was Case’s Twitter stroke that made this thing gain traction.

"Plus, she said, she’s already Robyn."



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Slowly but surely, continued progress on the Oxford Waffle House saga was brought to Twitter. In May 2019, Tannehill met with Waffle House's Vice President of Real Estate, donning her hat for the occasion. In June, she wore her nametag for a meeting with another corporate real estate executive. Case continued to tweet about bringing a Waffle House to town during this time as well, but unfortunately, he has since deleted his account, and all his old tweets are now lost to time; the ones in this post are only available because they were saved as screenshots while the saga was still unfolding. I'm pretty certain I saved a bunch of others myself, but I, too, appear to have lost them along the way.



In August 2019, "waffle history was made" when Waffle House upped the ante by bringing a food truck to the Oxford Square as part of its National Waffle Week celebrations. In another Oxford Eagle article, it is noted that "Bobby Garner, former Ole Miss quarterback and current senior vice president of Waffle House, was one of several staffers on hand, passing out free waffles on the Square. Garner played for the Rebels from 1976-78.

"'It's been a long time coming,' Garner said. 'This here just kind of solidifies our decision to go ahead and move into this market here. The mayor's commitment is just wonderful.'" Before all of this, Oxford only had a Huddle House, and the closest Waffle House was half an hour away, in Batesville.



A few months later, in December 2019, Waffle House showed up on the Ole Miss campus, with a career opportunity setup in Conner Hall, the accountancy building. Some swag was available -- which, of course, I picked up. (I would have liked to have grabbed one of each type of koozie, but didn't feel comfortable doing that. I did end up snagging a second novelty pin that I found left on a table, though.) The Facebook post on the event notes that Waffle House was also planning on "feeding our students during finals week this spring at Holman Hall," next door at the business school, but alas, the subsequent COVID-19 pandemic shutdowns squashed those plans.




My Waffle House swag pack

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Events which were made less public but which were still very real took place in the two months between September's Waffle Week on the square and December's campus visit. In October 2019, the Oxford Planning Commission officially approved a preliminary site plan for a Waffle House in Oxford, and in November, the Board of Alderman seconded. The building was to be located on Commonwealth Boulevard, north of the Malco, in the Oxford Commons area of town.


Further discussion continued into January of the new year, but as you and I know, pretty much everything ground to a halt in March 2020 when the pandemic hit. News on Waffle House's arrival in Oxford wouldn't pick up again until a year later, in March 2021, when it was announced the company had decided on a new location, still in Oxford Commons, but now in a more visible spot directly abutting the roundabout at Ed Perry Boulevard and Sisk Avenue. The final site plan and architectural renderings were presented and approved in June 2021, and construction finally began in July 2022, after some further delays.

Site plan

Architectural rendering

Groundbreaking

By late September 2022, the building was coming along fast, and finally, the day arrived: Oxford's very first Waffle House held its grand opening in late November 2022. Mayor Robyn Tannehill was on hand for the festivities, alongside Waffle House executives including former Ole Miss Rebel Bobby Garner, mentioned earlier. Also in celebration of the event, TeeWhites -- a locally-owned custom apparel business (in nearby Flora, MS!) -- put out a limited-edition run of "Finally in Oxford" sweatshirts. According to their website, TeeWhites' founder, Tyler White, is actually a student at the Ole Miss School of Law... I wonder if he knows Professor Case.

Construction progress

Grand opening day

Limited edition sweatshirts

Definitely would've bought one of these if I'd known about it!

Speaking of Case... as I said, it seems he is no longer on Twitter, but he is still very much an active professor at the university. I feel it's only fitting to assume he has been to the Waffle House many times since it opened; he did state multiple times that his dream scenario would be to have "a stool at the counter that’s kind of like my stool, like Norm on ‘Cheers.’ And maybe when I come in everyone would yell my name." I'd like to think that hopefully, on at least one of those times he's visited, he kept his promise from the tweet below and shared a waffle with Mayor Tannehill. They are, after all, the dynamic duo that brought about the #WaffleHouseinOxfordMS: Batman and Robyn.


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Obviously, though the introduction I wrote years ago was clearly very optimistic that a Waffle House would arrive in town seemingly overnight, I had long since graduated and moved away by the time the restaurant was finally built. As a matter of fact, I hadn't been back to Oxford at all since graduating with my masters degree in May 2021. Last month, though, I was in nearby Water Valley for a friend's wedding... and since Oxford was so close, I couldn't resist the temptation to drive that way and finally see the Waffle House in person.


Having just eaten at the wedding, all I did was park and briefly walk around the restaurant for a few pictures, but I'm glad I took the chance to see it. I'm sure I may have looked a little strange, a guy in a full suit walking around taking pictures of the outside of a Waffle House on a Saturday night, but after all that build-up, the restaurant had to be seen to be believed!


If walking around a Waffle House parking lot in my suit and tie was strange, then subsequently driving over to campus and doing the same was probably even weirder. Luckily, there wasn't really anybody out and about at 8:00 on a Saturday night. (Well, I'm sure a lot was going on in Oxford, just not on campus!) As I said, I hadn't been back since graduation, so it was very neat and nostalgic getting to recreate all the usual routes I'd take to class and see my old apartment and the Grove. I enjoyed it a lot. (Even if I wasn't able to walk it all quite as fast as I used to.)


I really like the backlit sign along the road for the Waffle House. The building itself is composed of all brick, similar to the Waffle House in Hernando (seen earlier in the post). Hernando has a brick ordinance, whereas Oxford does not, but it's possible Waffle House is building all of its new restaurants these days out of brick; I'm not sure. A tweet I saw in doing my research for this post called this "the most Madison looking Waffle House," in reference to the architecture of Madison, MS, which is pretty funny.


As I said, I didn't go inside the restaurant, but if you zoom in, you'll see that the tiles along the wall -- which are usually black against a yellow background -- are alternating red and blue instead, the Ole Miss colors, on a black background. I thought that was a nice touch. I believe the pictures on the wall above the tiles are also related to the University and/or Oxford.


Even the mailbox is 100% Waffle House! We'll close with a nice overview shot of the entire building, as viewed from the roundabout out front, from an image posted to Google Maps. It's still not a daytime shot, but at least it's not pitch black outside like in my images.

Courtesy Google Maps

Y'all seemed really excited about my "Batman"-related post when I teased it last month, so I hope you guys enjoyed it! I thought it was really cool getting to follow along with this story in real-time while I was still in college, and I'm glad to have my own little tiny personal connection to it with the swag pack I picked up at Conner Hall that afternoon (the items from which I still have proudly displayed with my retail collection to this day). I only wish I had saved more of Professor Case's tweets along the way as well, as there were definitely plenty more besides the relatively few still surviving online (including, if I'm not mistaken, the Batman "origin story," if you will).

For those wondering, my friend's wedding was great as well; I'm really happy for her and her husband. I enjoyed getting to go to that, and I also enjoyed the freeing feeling of walking around campus on a Saturday night, in a suit and tie, three years since my last visit! Incidentally, the topics of weddings and freedom will play a very major role in my post for next month, too, so I hope you'll stick around for that. In the meantime, until then and as always, thanks for reading, and have fun exploring the retail world wherever you are!

Retail Retell

9 comments:

  1. Anonymous in HoustonApril 28, 2024 at 8:11 AM

    This was certainly an unexpected post topic, but it is interesting to see 'the movement' work the way it did! The funny thing is that a Waffle House moved into my area about a decade ago and I don't remember there being any buzz about it before or after they arrived. They're still around, in the parking lot of one of my local Food Towns which was formerly my local Safeway way back in the day, but I think everyone would have preferred a Whataburger instead! But, hey, this is Texas after all!

    Speaking of Whataburger, or 'Whatburger' as it was said on Twitter, I wonder if Mississippians use the correct pronunciation of it. Texans pronounce it 'Waterburger' rather than 'what - a - burger' as Whataburger would seemingly prefer. They even had an ad campaign which phonetically pronounced their name, but I dare to say that didn't work and Whataburger is still Waterburger around here!

    Finding the worst Kroger on Planet Earth might be up for debate! I doubt any of the prime contenders are in MS though! At the time those posts were made, perhaps arguments could have been made for the small-town Krogers in Arkansas, but those are mostly gone now I think and I suppose those stores served a purpose in smaller areas. While this Kroger in Indianapolis will certainly get some votes for being the worst, I'm sure retail enthusiasts will not agree as this oddball does have some charm! Link: https://maps.app.goo.gl/HmgT8qJvraoUMbvw7

    Of course, there are a couple of Houston Krogers featured in The Year of Kroger which might make the list of contenders, but trust me, there are some worse Krogers in the Dallas Metroplex than anything here!

    Speaking of retail enthusiasts, I'm sure the term 'Super Kroger' probably got to you a bit! Oh well, I suppose we all know what he meant. Our Super Krogers get about the same reaction as our Waffle Houses. The funny thing is that I was at my local Blue & Grey Market Krogertsons recently and I overheard an employee talking to someone else (presumably a customer). The employee said they live near another Kroger, but they dislike big Krogers because you have to walk all the way across a big store just to get milk and such. I'm not sure if he was referring to a Super Kroger...err...Kroger Marketplace or what, but I agree with him! The Krogertsons is actually much more convenient and really isn't lacking much of interest. They even sell Hanes socks if one really wants to buy clothing at Kroger, lol. So, yeah, I think Super Krogers are only Super in theory. In reality, give me a nice normal Kroger...or Krogertsons!

    Perhaps this isn't related to anything, but you know I like sharing Kroger videos with you from The Portal of Texas History. Well, here's a recent find, a video from the Dallas area in 1988 talking about how much nicer supermarkets are than they were before. Where did they film this at? A Bauhaus/Greenhouse Kroger, of course! Don't ask me to explain the flashing lights at the front end, I don't know what those would be and I certainly don't remember those at our Krogers at the time. Still, there are some great Bauhaus views here! Link: https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc2126056/m1/

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    1. Glad you enjoyed it! And ha, that's funny your area was more excited about Whataburger than Waffle House. Clearly Oxford wanted a Whataburger as well given the results of that poll, but I'm glad the Waffle House fun led to actual results. I didn't emphasize this very much in the post, but a big argument was just how crazy it was for Oxford to be the only SEC town without one. There was also some shade thrown toward Huddle House, which Oxford does have, but I didn't think that was a particularly relevant or nice part of the story, lol. Waffle House was kind enough to open up on the opposite side of town, so there's that, at least!

      LOL -- I'm glad you pointed out the spelling of "Whatburger"! I'd totally forgotten about that... that was definitely on purpose, it was not his only tweet to spell it that way. I've heard "Water-burger" a lot, which is just a little weird to me, haha. I try to pronounce it as it is spelled. I don't doubt they'll be in Oxford eventually, as they are popping up all over the Memphis market, with I think at least four locations in DeSoto County alone. Whataburger did used to be in Memphis a long time ago and people did always clamor for them to come back, but I really hope they're not oversaturating the market with how quickly they keep sprouting up with new locations.

      Ha, yeah, I definitely wouldn't call Oxford's Kroger the worst store on the planet, even pre-expansion. It and Hernando were very similar in that sense as they both sported millennium decor and were built around the same time. The post-expansion store is nice, but I guess Hernando still technically has the edge. As you said, though, it's not hard to find lots of the same types of merchandise even at "regular" Krogers. The biggest thing about "Super Krogers" is that they are, well, big! I don't mind walking around the store personally, as long as I know where everything is, but yeah, there's definitely something to be said for the fact that the smaller stores still stock much of the same stuff. I think somewhere in there is a sweet spot, as my mom, when she visits, always calls my Krogbertsons "tiny."

      Very cool find with that video! I wonder what the blinking lights were for, too. That's a neat little store in Indianapolis as well.

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    2. That's a cool video featuring the Bauhaus Kroger!

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  2. “The purpose of Twitter is to express humor and find humor in more serious topics. If Twitter isn't making him laugh, he's not enjoying it." - Wow, I always thought Twitter was just a place where people went to argue about politics! If that's how Professor Case viewed Twitter, I'm not surprised he's since deleted his account, as it seems like Twitter has become nothing more than a place to spread negativity these days (as has much of social media anymore, but I digress). However, it's interesting to see how Twitter played a role in causing something positive to happen for the Oxford, MS community, and it was interesting seeing how a Twitter joke turned into a movement that gained Oxford an actual Waffle House! I like how Oxford actually listened to the people of the community and made this location happen.

    I may have mentioned this before, but even after living in the Southeast for over 20 years, I've never been to a Waffle House (gasp!). I'm not much of one to go out for breakfast (and as such, I've never been to an IHOP before either, and only been to Denny's once). As such I don't have a whole lot to share as far as personal memories and connections to Waffle House go, but I've heard from others it's pretty good!

    It's nice how you have a small personal connection to the Oxford Waffle House saga too with the visits the company made to campus as the movement was building. Maybe one of these days you'll have to stop in here and have a meal to truly complete the story.

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    1. Definitely with you on social media having gone more and more downhill. I'm glad Professor Case viewed it that way to begin with, and I'm not sure if his view changed or what ultimately caused him to delete his account. The whole reason I found out about this stuff in the first place is because, at that time in college, I would browse Twitter (back when you could view it for free, without an account!) for jokes and other funny content. I stumbled upon his account somehow along the way. But I then stopped checking Twitter entirely when even the joke pages decided they needed to chime in about the 2020 election and the pandemic and all that crap. There's a lot of things I find wrong with social media, as you and I have discussed before, and I really don't like to think about the negative impacts it has had on so many people. I'm glad this Waffle House story was actually a lighthearted and positive one for a change, but I wonder how many of those are still out there in this current environment? Like you said, though, I digress.

      If you have told me that, I've forgotten -- that's pretty wild! Then again, if you're not a breakfast guy, you're just not a breakfast guy -- I totally get that. I'm similar with sweets; I will much more quickly go for seconds of dinner than get dessert. I've even been known to stop in the middle of dessert before if I am full. That throws a lot of people off, but what can I say, I prefer savory foods! If that's the same for you, Waffle House does have some pretty good options still, such as their hashbrown bowls which I enjoy (and I definitely didn't go there last night after writing this to have one of those plus a waffle XD ). I don't think you're missing anything on IHOP or Denny's, though -- can't say I've ever had good experiences at either of those.

      Yeah, I'd definitely like to stop in one day! If I hadn't just eaten at the wedding, I was absolutely considering it, too. I'd also love to learn Professor Case's thoughts of the restaurant now that it exists, but I guess that may just remain something kept out of the public eye...

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  3. Fun story and cool to see everything work out to bring a location to Oxford. Sometimes social media does benefit people. lol

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    1. Yeah, it's really nice seeing a positive impact from social media for a change, haha!

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  4. That’s dedication for a professor to commute two hours daily! I guess the positive is that traffic is probably light for most trips, and there are people in this world who drive commutes which are ideally an hour but typically take longer.

    As for this guy’s Tweets, several of them did make me crack up. Just picture Ole Miss being called “Ole Hern”; it makes me think of a hernia! I also wish the professor could have seen some of the Kroger stores I’ve been to (cough cough, "Kroger Sh***y Center" – I still wonder if this rat video is real) because the Oxford Kroger pre-remodel looks like the Ritz Carlton in comparison! Furthermore, I'm shocked to hear an old Albertsons described as "small"!

    That’s so cool how Waffle House decided to play along with the joke, and even sent custom name tags to the mayor and professor. At least all of the hype ended up working out. Growing up in an area that had three Waffle Houses in close proximity, I suppose that I’ve always taken them for granted and not thought much of them. They do still make a pretty good waffle, though.

    I’m surprised by how nice this Waffle House looks – back in Georgia, I still see plenty of restaurants with the plain ole yellow look. I’m guessing that they wanted this one to look nicer since there was such a production to bring it to town. I’m also sure you got a few strange looks out the window while you were walking around in your suit . . . ha!

    While I have a little idea about what your upcoming post will include, I’m still looking forward to see what came out of your adventure!

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    1. That commute would definitely get old, but to your point, it usually moves pretty smoothly -- certainly can't say the same about a lot of commutes, perhaps even the majority! And similarly, yeah, the Oxford Kroger absolutely was far from the worst out there.

      Ha -- the size of Kroger stores (and Walmarts, and Targets) I'm used to makes the former Albertsons I shop at seem a lot smaller in comparison. As for the story -- I agree, it was great to see Waffle House play along here, and I'm glad it had a good ending result for the community and everyone involved.

      I got similar comments on the building design over on flickr when I linked to this post... that's interesting to me, because I feel like I see brick Waffle Houses much more frequently than the "traditional" design. In some cases this is due to building ordinances in the community, but that definitely does not explain all of them; most of them are newer, though (within the last two decades), so my impression is that this is just the modern day design for Waffle House. I could be wrong, of course, but it's interesting regardless how my experience is different from what everyone else is familiar with seeing! The only thing on this one I hadn't seen before was the backlit road sign.

      Thanks!

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