[Kings Waffle] Chapter 10: Waiting for the Lights

My best guess?

Even if the place wasn’t shut down with padlocks on the door, I’d still probably not know anybody inside. There’s a good chance I might still recognize some of the regulars or an employee, but I don’t know if they’d remember me. I haven’t been here in awhile. Nevertheless, on this day, at this time—Kings Waffle is where I want to be. 

It’s hot and muggy with a stereotypical midwestern summer having just arrived fresh off a lack of Spring. Normally, the amusement park across the highway and the waterpark down the road would’ve been opened for the season, but they’re both shuttered for the moment. And like I discussed in the previous entry: so is Kings Waffle as the COVID-19 Pandemic continues. Tonight’s dinner came from the neighboring Burger King and my thirst for coffee is yet to be quenched as even a different Waffle House location down the road was also closed. Despite the nearby Skyline Chili now advertising that their dining room has been allowed to reopen, Kings Waffle has yet to greet a customer once more. Still, I grab a seat on the curb out front (what we used to affectionately call “the stoop”) and open an October 2014 issue of Cincinnati Magazine.

My car is one of three in the lot. The second is a vehicle that’s seemingly been stashed here, the third belongs to a shirtless man listening to the radio, appearing to take a nap with his Jeep windows down. Several semi trucks and trailers have taken advantage of the ample asphalt, nestling themselves around the locked building. The nearby hotels are still open, some kids are in a parking lot fighting with pool noodles since they most likely can’t use the Baymont Inn & Suites aquatic amenities. The birds are singing and darting out of the trees onto the red Waffle House awning, but they compete for noise with the din of Kings Mills Rd. and Interstate 71. A discarded face mask is fluttering in the breeze, caught up on some weeds just below the overgrown grass surrounding the restaurant as storm clouds gather overhead. Half of a cigarette receptacle is missing, showing off its vast collection of discarded, brown butts. A few lights are on inside, but will the outdoor lights switch on at dusk like they traditionally do? 

Seems I’ll find out in a few hours or so. 

This particular copy of Cincinnati Magazine in my hand is special to me, because, well—it features a story about me. I’m not reading it for vanity, but more so as research in attempting to get back to this project of documenting my Waffle House and the people I knew here—folks emblazoned with the title of “regular.” The truth is, I’ve sat down to write this post many times in the ensuing years—once while on vacation, a handful of times while actually stopping in to Kings Waffle (only to get distracted by conversation), and occasionally at my home desk in three different apartments as I’ve tried to will the writing into existence. “Time and the Waffle,” which starts on Page 19 in the magazine’s “Front Lines” section, opened with a paragraph about my work (both the Kings Waffle series and other series) above nine photographs seen in this project so far. The text goes on to describe who I was/am and what I was doing at the time. I like the piece, not simply because it’s flattering, but I feel it’s an accurate and honest delineation. It was authored by a man named Cedric Rose and he, well, he got it. 

He listened and he understood. 

Cedric originally reached out via email and we later hopped in my car and made the run up "71" to Kings Waffle. He hung out with myself and some others for an evening before I made a photograph of him. It only seemed fitting that if he had taken the time to see this place for himself, he should be photographed as part of the story as well. I never got around to posting Cedric’s photograph, though. I never got around to posting A LOT of photographs. Because, life changed not long after. 

That previous sentence wasn’t meant to insert a dramatic pause or imply that something earth-shattering occurred, rather, things just changed. And not just for me. A lot of the regulars from around the time of Cedric’s article moved on to other chapters of life. Many of us found new jobs, new cities, new partners, and new responsibilities. Slowly, there seemed to be less and less of the same folks hanging around. I still made time for Kings Waffle, still had quite a few nights there bullshitting at the low counter till 3 a.m., but those became less frequent. Gone, for many of us, were the days of just pulling up at any time with no rhyme or reason and finding several of your friends already on the stoop. 

There’s a nostalgia to it, days and nights where I miss it, but it all seemed to happen naturally. One day, probably after stopping in for a quick cup of coffee and not recognizing anyone there, it just hit me that I wasn’t a “regular” anymore. And in the time that had lapsed, so too did my writing about Kings Waffle. What keeps all that from being a sad thought, though, is that I know I can always go back—that the yellow glow off Exit 25 still shines like a lighthouse. Even if I have to read a name tag and find myself sitting alone, I know I’m still welcomed there. Just as so many are.



When Cedric’s article was published, I was working a retail job after departing years of service to Kings Island Amusement Park (the previous job that had introduced me to this particular Waffle House and its people). After days of toiling against consumers in the mall and missing my old roller coaster related job, social interaction at Kings Waffle was a remedy. I wasn’t in a great place at the time. I felt aimless, I felt down, I felt lost. 

Constantly. 

Kings Waffle was an escape from all of that—a place I could go to simply exist amongst some of the most welcoming and wonderful people I’ve had the privilege to know. I needed Kings Waffle—not the physical restaurant with mediocre food and good coffee, rather, I needed what Kings Waffle represented. And I’ll always be grateful that I found it. I hope it has meant the same to others and hope it will continue to be so for anyone new who pulls up and scratches their bumper on the curb as the chain-smoking (some now chain-vaping) regulars roll their eyes. 

These days, I’ve found the comfort and lessons of Kings Waffle in many other facets of life. That’s not to say that every day feels as enjoyable as a 10 PM Cheese Steak Omelet, but I’ve been able to take my experiences and look outward and forward, happy to share stories with anyone who cares to listen. So, I wanted to finish these Kings Waffle chapters even if I haven’t seen some of these people in some time, even if the photographs are now a bit dated, and even if the tense has to change from present to past. 

At this moment, maybe it’s best to start with Cedric who wrote at the end of his article: 

“It turns out no one is safe around Salerno. After he takes care to pay up before our waitress goes off shift, he disappears. Suddenly, I’m staring down the barrel of the Canon 60D [camera] stashed in his trunk...”

Cedric

- Cedric, "staring down the barrel of the Canon 60D" on August 12, 2014.

Thankfully, I’ve been able to see Cedric a few times since, like when we caught up while removing our shoes in a security line at the Federal Building in downtown Cincinnati because we heard the employee cafe featured one of the last locations of an historic Queen City chili parlor (it didn’t). Cedric’s a wonderful writer, a good person, a friend, and now in the years since this photograph was made: a father. 

Cedric, thanks for taking the time to listen back in 2014. 

As I sit in my car-turned-mobile-office finishing up this post, the exterior lights and highway sign still haven’t kicked on, but another vehicle has pulled in. It’s a red truck that I instantly recognize due to its Purple Heart license plate. My “best guess” was wrong. Even when closed during a pandemic, even after all this time, I still know someone here. It’s “The Wiz” from Chapter 2, slamming his truck door and chomping on a cigar, asking: “what’s goin’ on, Ron” as if we’d just seen each other last week and not just inside a year. 



As we speculate on when Kings Waffle will reopen, Wiz offer’s his prediction: “Ron, that sum-bitch ain’t ever gonna reopen.” Nevertheless, we grab a seat on the stoop and start talking just as Charlie, another regular, also pulls up to check in on the place.

Even as those exterior lights have yet to come back on. 



To commandeer a phrase from Ira Glass: “Back next week soon with more stories of This American Waffle Life.”

NOTE: I visited Kings Waffle on May 27, 2020 and began authoring this chapter. At the time, the restaurant had been closed since mid-March due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. It's my understanding that as of June 15, 2020—the place has reopened with limited hours.

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Next Chapter: (Just a Few of) The Waffle Makers

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