ATLANTA - On Sept. 5, 1955, a small yellow-signed diner opened its doors in Avondale Estates, Georgia. Seventy years later, that single Waffle House has grown into a cultural institution with nearly 2,000 restaurants across 25 states.

What we know:

Founded by Joe Rogers Sr., a restaurant manager, and Tom Forkner, a real estate agent, the chain built its reputation on serving hearty food 24 hours a day, seven days a week. While waffles gave the restaurant its name, it was the hash browns — served "scattered, smothered, covered" and beyond — that cemented Waffle House in the Southern food tradition.

Over the decades, Waffle House became more than a restaurant. The Federal Emergency Management Agency even adopted the "Waffle House Index" as an informal measure of disaster severity: if a

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