It has come to my attention that a lot of people scoff when they hear the words “Waffle House.” Something about those eleven bold black letters, standing up beside the highway in little blocks of bright yellow, is just unappealing to them. A lot of people are foolish like I once was, and view Waffle House as a worst case scenario — a place to go if you cannot find anywhere else. I’m here to tell you that you’re wrong and you seriously need to reconsider your life choices.

First of all, you need to realize that Waffle House will probably be the most loyal thing in your life. While all these people are sending you mixed signals and leaving your messages on read, Waffle House is open. When your friends are all hanging out without you and acting like they’re not, Waffle House is open. When even your parents won’t pick up your calls because they’re probably doing something more fun than you are, Waffle House is open. 

Do you know how I know that Waffle House is open? Because they’re open 24/7, 365 days a year. That’s right, no matter what you’re doing or where you are, or how horrible your life is at said moment, Waffle House will literally always be there to support you.

There’s a stigma surrounding Waffle House’s food, and I’m here to tell you that it’s all a lie, because Waffle House’s food is delicious. Not only is it delicious, but it is so reasonably priced that you’ll wonder why you ever bothered spending a cent anywhere else. 

Straight from the Waffle House web site, “For a low price of $2, you can have a bite at the restaurant. The maximum price you can pay for your food at the restaurant is $10.” That $10 option is a ribeye, which I bet you didn’t even know Waffle House sold. I bet you didn’t know that you could get your hash browns at Waffle House in six different varieties either, which is unheard of at any other of your beloved breakfast chains.

However, what truly certifies Waffle House as the best restaurant on our planet, and therefore the best one on campus, is that Waffle House is an experience. I know you may look down on it; it’s quaint, and its simple, and it’s not the most glamorous restaurant in the world. But Waffle House creates an environment where you are guaranteed to have the best time with whoever you go with, which is really what eating out should be about anyway. 

That’s because Waffle House has this magical quality where, once inside, nothing and nobody is capable of being anything but 100 percent authentic. No one ever says, “I don’t think I’m dressed up enough” for Waffle House. You wear whatever you want, you sit down at a booth across from someone, and you have a genuine conversation with no distractions or dim lighting. 

You don’t wait 45 minutes for some pretentious gourmet dish, you see them unapologetically pour the waffle batter into the waffle maker right before your eyes. You sit at a booth next to huge windows where anyone walking by can see your face, and that’s purposely there to display the fact that everyone eating in Waffle House is proud to be there, they’re having the best time ever, and they pity every onlooker. 

I decided I loved Waffle House when I went a long time ago with my now-ex boyfriend. While I thought it was awesome to be in a place where everyone was chatting, laughing and dying of exhaustion at 3 a.m., all while deliriously eating breakfast food, he called the waiter over and started complaining about how his chocolate milk wasn’t good enough. And then to me about how uncomfortable he felt in his Polo sweater in this casual place. 

You have a choice to be two kinds of people. If you want to dress up super nice, eat some five star meals, or take your date to a dimly lit, fancy, expensive place to impress them, don’t step a foot into Waffle House. But if you care more about the friends you’re with than some high-class destination, if you want to get to know the real, uncensored versions of people, and if on top of all of that, you want to eat breakfast foods and drink hot chocolate at weird hours of the night with a ton of happy, tired strangers, then you need to go to Waffle House right now. 

You need to go and you need to thank them for being there for you and being amazing even when you continuously chose everyone else over them. Forget everywhere else, Waffle House is the best destination for every occasion, and it’s about time you realized it.