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Waffle House Chairman Joe Rogers Jr. Debuts As A Billionaire As Restaurant Industry Digs Out From Wreckage
While visiting Florida’s Panhandle city Destin over several 70-degree days in mid-March, longtime Waffle House chairman Joe Rogers Jr. checked in on fry cooks, servers and managers at three of his 24-hour diners, all just steps from dunes, a sunset or a boardwalk. He coached his workers through some of the biggest crowds they’ve experienced in a year as hoards of spring breakers fresh off late nights of partying and flush with stimulus checks lined up for hash browns, bacon and eggs.
“The customers showed up in droves,” says Rogers, a cofounder’s son who has been running the chain since the 1970s. “Business started surging. In Destin, traffic was crazy.”
It was a welcome relief for the iconic chain, after what was one of the most difficult times in the 66-year history of Waffle House. Sales have been up as much as 15% in the past few weeks, reversing a decline that began with the pandemic lockdown last March. Forbes estimates Waffle House’s 2020 sales were around $1 billion, after getting back to 90% of overall sales from 2019 by the fall. Compare that with Denny’s, perhaps the closest comparable public business, where sales fell by almost half last year.
Still, with vaccination in full swing across the U.S., investors are driving up the value of affordable dining rooms: Denny’s shares are up 260% from a March 2020 low of $5 and are trading at nearly 4 times revenue (and other fast food chains are trading even higher). Based on that, Waffle House would be worth at least $4 billion, which would make Rogers worth at least $2 billion. That’s enough to debut on Forbes‘ global ranking of the world’s billionaires for the first time this year. Rogers, 74, says any estimate of his personal fortune is “fake news” but doesn’t deny that Waffle House is starting to thrive again.
A year ago, as the pandemic forced closures across the restaurant industry, things looked far less prosperous. While drive-through and delivery stalwarts like McDonald’s and Dominos thrived, breakfast chains like Dunkin and Horton’s were crushed when commuting was mostly halted, a blow that hit dine-in only Waffle House even harder: Sales dropped 70% in just a few weeks in March 2020, forcing Rogers to close 20% of its locations and furlough thousands of workers. That month, for the first-time ever, the chain’s “Waffle House Index” — which has been used in the past by FEMA to measure how devastating a catastrophe is to local communities — flashed red.
Read More : pg
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