How Many Waffle Houses Are in Louisiana? State Ranking Revealed
When you think of symbols of the South, what comes to mind? Sweet tea, SEC football...and probably that glowing yellow Waffle House sign. It's a landmark, and in Louisiana, it's just part of the landscape. It's more than just a restaurant...it's a 24-hour beacon of hope.
In reality, if you're in a city in Louisiana, you're never too far from one. Whether you're in Shreveport, Baton Rouge, or Lake Charles. But have you ever wondered how many Louisiana actually has? We looked at the numbers to see where the Pelican State lands in the great waffle war.
What's Louisiana's Official Waffle House Count?
According to the latest data, Louisiana is home to 104 Waffle House restaurants. That accounts for about 5% of all the Waffle Houses in the entire country.
That sounds like a lot, and it's definitely enough to keep the whole state supplied with scattered, smothered, and covered hash browns. A slightly different count puts that number at 105, but either way, it's comfortably over the 100 mark.
How Louisiana Ranks For Waffle House Stops
This is where it gets interesting...Louisiana sits at #8 in the nation for the most Waffle Houses. Solidly in the top ten, yet shockingly far from #1...
Louisiana is absolutely dwarfed by the #1 state, which is Georgia. It's not even a competition...Georgia has a staggering 447 locations, which is 22% of all Waffle Houses in the US. You can't throw a rock in Atlanta without hitting one.
So how does Louisiana look against the neighbors in the Ark-La-Tex? Actually, not bad.
Louisiana has more than Mississippi, which has 89 locations, and way more than Arkansas, which only has 45. Texas has Louisiana beat with 123 locations, but considering how massive Texas is, the #8 spot looks even more impressive.
Here's a look at how many Waffle Houses land in each state:
Georgia: 447
Florida: 193
North Carolina: 187
South Carolina: 178
Alabama: 161
Tennessee: 142
Texas: 132
Louisiana: 104
Mississippi: 89
Ohio: 85
Virginia: 70
Kentucky: 61
Arkansas: 45
Missouri: 38
Oklahoma: 17
Indiana: 16
Arizona: 15
Maryland: 12
Colorado: 10
Pennsylvania: 8
Delaware: 5
West Virginia: 5
Kansas: 4
Illinois: 1
New Mexico: 1
Waffle House Plays A Role In Hurricane Preparation and Response
This isn't a joke...this is a real thing. The 'Waffle House Index' is an informal metric used by emergency managers, including FEMA, to measure how bad a storm really is.
Former FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate is the one who coined the term.
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The idea is that Waffle House is always open...they're prepared for anything. They have generators, simplified menus, and crisis plans ready to go. If a Waffle House is closed, you know the situation is catastrophic.
They have a color-coded system for it: Green means the store is open with a full menu...the community is fine. Yellow means it's open but on a limited menu, probably running on that generator.
But Red...Red is the bad one. If the index is Red, the restaurant is completely closed. That's when FEMA knows a community is in real trouble and needs serious help...it's a sign that the basic infrastructure is gone.