It's where college professors and construction workers sit side-by-side at yellow counters. The Waffle House is a 24-hour diner where the coffee's always on, the grits always bubbling.

It's where hungry folks from all walks have been coming for 50 years to get cheap, hot food that's become as familiar as the matter-of-fact greeting: "Hey ... what y'all havin'?"

There are 1,500 Waffle Houses spread across 25 states, as far west as Arizona and as far north as Illinois, but the chain is still rooted deeply in the South and retains a distinctively down-home, blue-collar aura.

Maybe it's the simple menu anchored by eggs, grits and hash browns smothered and covered in cheese and onions, the firm cash-only policy or the fact it serves most meals for under five dollars. It somehow feels like breakfast at Grandma's house - before she started worrying about her cholesterol. "You know at every (highway) exit there's a simmering pot of grits waiting for you," said John Edge, director of the Southern Foodways Alliance at the University of Mississippi. "Waffle House is a company that manages to be a national presence that still generates local pride, and that's tough to do. Boysenberry syrup from IHOP is not in our vernacular." Waffle House started in September 1955 after co-founder Roy Rogers had an idea for a sit-down restaurant that rivaled the speed of fast-food shops.

When the first restaurant opened in Georgia's Avondale Estates, only one other restaurant in Atlanta was opened. Rogers convinced co-founder Tom Forkner that a restaurant that never closed would thrive in the modern world of interstate highways and television.

Today, it's hard to drive far on an interstate across much of the country without seeing a yellow-and-black Waffle House sign. In some Atlanta suburbs, Waffle Houses are across the street from each other.

Originally published online here: http://www.wistv.com/Global/story.asp?S=3718572