September 16, 2005

Eat waffles, drink coffee and relax in the comfortable environment, all made possible with Carrier products installed at the new Waffle House restaurant in Norcross, GA.

Last month, Waffle House Restaurants commemorated this new restaurant, adding to its existing chain of 1500 restaurants in 25 states. This was not just any other opening for Waffle House Restaurants. The new restaurant, located just around the corner from their corporate headquarters, is the result of a two-year collaboration with Carrier. Almost all of the equipment in this store came from the Carrier product line. 

How many pieces of equipment could that possibly be, you ask? You might expect Carrier to provide the high efficiency rooftop air-conditioning units as well as the refrigeration equipment, such as the walk-in cooler provided by International Cold Storage, and the five additional refrigerators that were provided by Beverage-Air. But, did you know that in addition to these two divisions, Carrier Commercial Refrigeration (CCR) makes many other types of foodservice equipment? Carter-Hoffmann created a custom fabricated stainless steel back-bar just for this location. Bloomfield provided the coffee and tea equipment, World Dryer provided the restroom hand dryers, and Wells provided toasters, warmers, ranges, griddles and, significantly, four waffle bakers.

According to Chris Berl, manager of marketing for CCR, Carrier has provided Waffle House’s lead piece of equipment -- the waffle baker -- since the first Waffle House opened in 1955. And while Waffle House Restaurants have always used CCR equipment, this is the first time that they have made an effort to use as much Carrier equipment as possible. 

“Through our long history together, Waffle House Restaurants has always been very pleased with the reliability of our products,” said Rick Sanfrey, president, Carrier Commercial Refrigeration, “But restaurants tend to buy through distributors and not directly from the manufacturers, and they tend to mix and match their equipment to get what they need for a particular restaurant. We have recently increased our focus on national accounts and are working to understand where we as Carrier can provide more value to the customer and achieve higher sales for ourselves.” 

As a result of CCR’s strong relationship with Waffle House Restaurants, Waffle House is now testing Taylor soft serve ice cream machines in a few restaurants -- 9 in Tallahassee, FL and 2 in Atlanta, GA -- representing a new source of profits for both Waffle House Restaurants and Carrier. 

“Not only is there huge potential for cross selling within the CCR companies,” continued Sanfrey, “but when we start combining our applications with air conditioning, controls, and even fire and safety equipment, we start to provide a whole new level of value to our customers.”

Waffle House Restaurants, currently marking its 50th anniversary, is the world’s largest server of waffles. Since opening, the company has served 500 million waffles, 1.2 billion orders of hash-browns, 1.5 billion eggs and 1 billion cups of coffee -- much of it made with CCR equipment.