For the third time in as many years, America's oldest franchisee of Waffle House is completely replacing one of its Chattanooga restaurants.
The 43-year-old Waffle House at Brainerd and Moore roads was closed earlier this month and will soon be demolished and replaced with a new and more modern eatery. Southern Legacy Waffles, the Alpharetta, Georgia-based Waffle House franchisee, plans to build a new 30-seat Waffle House that will feature a new separated walk-up window for take-out orders.
"This building has served its useful life, and it's time to get a new one," Steven Gower, senior vice president of Southern Legacy Waffles, said in a telephone interview. "We closed the Brainerd site on the day we opened our new Shallowford Road Waffle House."
The demolition and replacement of the Brainerd Waffle House will be similar to what the Waffle House franchisee has done during the past couple of years at its units in Lookout Valley and on Shallowford Road. Gower said once the Brainerd unit is replaced, the local Waffle House franchisee plans to begin similar demolition and replacement of the Waffle House on 23rd Street.
"Because of staffing issues and the like, we pretty much took most of the employees from Brainerd Road and moved them over to the Shallowford Road," Jeff Allen, an executive vice president and partner in Southern Legacy Waffles, said in a telephone interview.
Two years ago, Southern Legacy Waffles added its 10th restaurant location in Hamilton County with a new unit on East Brainerd Road at Jenkins Road that previously was the site of a Pizza Hut. Across its company footprint in four states, Southern Legacy is preparing to open its 75th unit in Bristol, Virginia.
"We'll add two or three new units a year, but we're consumed with many of our rebuilds right now," Allen said.
Allen said in the past that the replacement Waffle House restaurants typically took about four to five months to complete. Since the pandemic created bottlenecks in the supply chain, Allen said projects are taking much longer, noting that the rebuilding of the Waffle House in Lookout Valley took 15 months to complete.
"We're not saying it will take that long with all of our units, but I wouldn't be surprised if it takes nearly a year before we reopen our doors in Brainerd," he said. "Obviously we could do some remodels of our restaurants, but it's not the same as a complete teardown and remodel. The finished product is just so much better. A brand new facility attracts new customers, and the ones that have been loyal to us for many decades just love it. It's a great uplift for our company."
The Brainerd Waffle House is one of the oldest of the original Waffle House units in Chattanooga. The original East Ridge Waffle House opened in 1972 and was rebuilt in 2005.
Contact Dave Flessner at dflessner@timesfreepress.com or at 423-757-6340. Follow him on Twitter @dflessner1.