I grew up in Southern California, a veritable breakfast haven. We have restaurants like the Serving Spoon, a James Beard Foundation America’s Classics winner that has fed the Inglewood community for decades; Pann’s Restaurant, a Googie-style beacon of
eggs and hash browns just 10 minutes from the airport; and any pink-box doughnut shop. But for a long time, I have had to weather transplants bemoaning the chains and restaurants from their hometowns that have not crossed into Southern California. I see this constantly on Threads and Instagram, where people seem to take visceral pleasure from discussing what the dining scene in the largest county in the United States lacks. Though Waffle House has announced no plans to open in Los Angeles, I see impassioned requests for it too often.
James Beard Award–winning chef Sean Brock, who owns Darling in West Hollywood, might be one of those people; he tells me the world needs a hefty dose of Southern hospitality. “Every city in the world needs a Waffle House,” says the Virginia-born chef. “In the South, there’s always one place that’s there to feed you no matter what, to gather, catch up, and be nourished. And that’s Waffle House.”
Brock describes how Waffle House cultivates a strong sense of community for all its patrons, whether arriving in an expensive car, on foot late at night, or during a natural disaster. His regular Waffle House order remains a pork chop plate, though he says that the experience, for him, is all about feeling welcome. A lifelong Southerner (Brock splits his time between Nashville and Los Angeles), he believes in the chain’s model so much that he took the notable New York chef Daniel Humm and restaurateur Will Guidara to a Charleston Waffle House in the early 2010s. “They were blown away by the Waffle House’s hospitality,” says Brock. Guidara incorporated parts of the Waffle House philosophy into his restaurant group and wrote about the restaurant’s culture in his 2022 book about restaurant service, Unreasonable Hospitality.
Gritz N’ Wafflez chef and owner Jurni Rayne was born in Houston, Texas, and spent her youth dining at Waffle Houses. She debuted her popular Southern brunch restaurant in Los Angeles in 2022 and expanded twice to larger locations to meet customer demand. “We don’t want a Waffle House in Los Angeles,” says Rayne. “But we want Southern hospitality. We want that feeling that the Waffle House brings. We want to feel like we’re at a family reunion and just kicking it with our cousin and our granny is cool with us sitting on the couch that she had wrapped in plastic.”
I’ve only been to Waffle House twice. First as a college student, and the last time in August 2026 in Tampa, Florida. I enjoyed my golden waffle layered with tons of butter with a healthy pour of maple syrup. But I also considered how Rayne’s soul-warming restaurant and waffle consistency surpass the Waffle House experience in every way, complemented by her highly trained staff who practice their own unique hospitality. Gritz N’ Wafflez’s does not emanate the same Southern charm found in the South, likely because Los Angeles is not the South. Instead, one can expect a friendly face who checks in regularly, doesn’t hover, but makes sure the experience mirrors the spirit of its owner, whose Texas accent can sometimes be heard floating around the room.
Rayne says that Waffle House logistics would not be realistic in Los Angeles, anyway. “The other reason we like Waffle House is because it’s cheap,” she says. “You can get the all-American breakfast at Waffle House for under $10. That will not exist in Los Angeles. Margins are based on insurance premiums, taxes, overhead, and labor. Hypothetically, if it moved to Los Angeles, that same breakfast would be $27.”
Rayne’s point begs a better question about a Waffle House in Los Angeles: would someone be willing to pay $27 for a combination waffle platter with two eggs, choice of meat, toast, and hash browns? Los Angeles already has options, including Norm’s; Denny’s; and IHOP, where a comparable combination meal is only $18.99. (All of these breakfast chains originated in or near Los Angeles.) Angelenos can find homey breakfasts at Downtown’s Poppy & Rose; Larchmont’s Max & Helen’s; Eagle Rock’s newcomer Zero Fox, which serves an affordable all-day breakfast menu; and even biscuits from the Hart and the Hunter, which reopened in the same West Hollywood space it lived in previously on September 30. Breakfast lovers shouldn’t skip Koreatown’s Olympic Restaurant, which serves stellar pancakes made by a Korean family, or East Los Angeles fast-food diners like George’s Burger Stand, which slings a hearty pancake breakfast for $10. A short stack from Alhambra’s Aloha Food Factory that can feed two people runs for only $8.99.
Los Angeles, like any city, has its own dining culture. Breakfast is a kind of special religion in Los Angeles, and we have hundreds of familiar neighborhood diners and greasy spoons already serving communities the real flavor of this city: its diversity. Angelenos can understand the Waffle House nostalgia — but we also have legends of our own.
