The Waffle House day starts when someone’s night ends. A sun-bleached sign at a highway exit, a glass box lit like a stage, and the quiet clatter of a grill already awake. It’s never really closed, so “opening” is more of a handoff: third shift sliding into first while the coffee pours without asking. Truckers stake out corner stools, night-shift count tips into neat stacks, and a family in church clothes waits on a booth because this is where they always go after Sunday service. It’s a room built for unlikely neighbors.
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