(Originally posted on my food blog, Let’s Eat Out Once a Week)

Waffle House is a restaurant chain with over 2,100 locations in 25 states in the U.S., with most of them in the South. I’m pretty sure there’s no Waffle House in Canada, and D.L. was kind enough to treat me to a late dinner at one of their 13 Dayton-area locations after he picked me up at the airport.

The Waffle House location that we went to, which was at 380 East National Road, was just five minutes away from the motel where I was staying. Since I had never been to one of their locations, I asked the server for a recommendation. She suggested their hashbrowns with all of the toppings available:

I went with her suggestion, the Hashbrowns with those various toppings, and also a Leomonade. D.L. went with some waffles and a Leomade/Iced Tea mix. Unfortunately, his waffles were a bit cold, and they didn’t have a microwave at this Waffle House location, so they prepared a brand new plate for him.

As for my hashbrowns, they were great. More importantly, I had a chance to sit down and speak with D.L., who was the reason I was even in Dayton. He’d invited me to give a motivational speech to his class at the University of Dayton. Oddly enough, we didn’t talk about the upcoming speech but talked about some anecdotes from college/university life. It was a fun conversation. We even discussed how the advertising for Waffle House was both effective and ineffective by looking at their colourful menu!

It’s kind of interesting how I ended up in Dayton. I didn’t know D.L. until October, when he sought me out after reading some of my online posts and rants. He thought that I would have some insights to provide to his Engineering Organization Development (Org Behaviour for Engineers) ENM582 class, and he wrote me saying that if I happened to be in the Dayton, Ohio, area for any reason, he would love to have me speak to his class. Well, I hadn’t had a vacation for a long time, so I decided, why not check out Dayton? So that’s how things went down.

There were also some other food places on that same block, including KFC, Burger King, and Hot Air Balloon Lounge.

When: Tuesday, December 2, 2014
What: Hashbrowns with toppings
Where: Waffle House, 380 East National Road, Vandalia, Ohio 45377