The Waffle House food truck made a pit stop in College Station on Wednesday, feeding both a crowd of fans and ongoing speculation about the chain’s future in Aggieland.
From noon to 2 p.m., Aggies waited in line to eat free waffles and hash browns from the food truck, eventually making their way to dine in at the Clayton W. Williams, Jr. Alumni Center, where paper hats, t-shirts, sponsored 12th Man towels, photo booth prints and custom Coca-Cola bottles were distributed.
In honor of the breakfast chain’s 64th anniversary and National Waffle Week, Waffle House took to Twitter last week to ask fans where their next eatery should be built. Between College Station, San Antonio and Oxford, the highest percent of votes came from Aggieland.
“We had an overwhelming response from all three cities, College Station definitely exceeding that,” said Kelly Thrasher, a communications representative for Waffle House. “But we decided that we would go on a food truck tour of all of the cities because everyone was so excited for us to do it.”
Pat Warner, director of public relations and external affairs for Waffle House, said fans have been lobbying for the company to build a permanent location in Aggieland since Texas A&M joined the SEC, creating the #WafflesforAgs movement.
“We thought this year for National Waffle Week, we would do some pop-up locations to kind of tide people over till we get a restaurant there to thank everybody for their loyalty to Waffle House,” Warner said.
Warner said new locations are typically only built in areas with preexisting Waffle Houses, and College Station is not one of them, yet.
“We will be there someday,” Warner said. “Unfortunately, I do not know what day that will be. There are no plans right now. I do us see us having some restaurants in College Station eventually.”
Warner said the broadcast chain appreciates the lengths some customer will drive to visit their locations in Texas. Austin Lemons, an engineering freshman, participated in the original Twitter poll, trying to bring waffles to Aggies wouldn’t have to travel such great distances to dine at the popular franchise.
“I really like Waffle House, and the closest one to where I live is like 45 minutes away, so it was super worth it to retweet it and get other people to vote,” Lemons said.
Mike Woodard, Class of 1977, was also in attendance for the event, advocating for people to join the “College Station Needs a Waffle House” Facebook group. Woodard recently moved back to College Station and said bringing the franchise to Aggieland would be a great opportunity for students and the company.
“It’s good food, and it’s a very simple concept,” Woodard said. “It needs to happen. They don’t need to build just one. They need to have more than one here.”