A new Waffle House is taking shape on St. Louis Street in Batesville, with construction nearly complete and the company already accepting job applications for the location. The chain is looking to fill positions including manager, operations manager, shift supervisor, cook and server ahead of an eventual opening.
Arkansas Radio reported that the Batesville build is nearly finished. St. Louis Street doubles as U.S. Route 167. A LoopNet property listing describes the area as a retail corridor for quick-service restaurant tenants with exceptional visitor traffic and identifies a 7 Brew property at 770 S Saint Louis Street.
Why Batesville, Why Now
The timing tracks with Batesville's steady growth. The city's population reached an estimated 11,976 in 2026, up nearly 7% from the 11,191 residents counted in the 2020 U.S. Census, per data from World Population Review.
Waffle House at a National Scale
Nationally, the chain's reach is far larger. Waffle House operated more than 2,000 locations across 25 states as of 2025 and 2026, according to ScrapeHero. The chain employs more than 40,000 people, according to FOX 5 Atlanta. Georgia leads the country with more than 430 locations, a legacy of where it all began.
A 70-Year-Old Institution Known for Never Closing
Waffle House was founded on Labor Day weekend in 1955 by Joe Rogers Sr. and Tom Forkner in Avondale Estates, Georgia, where the original location now operates as a company museum, as reported by FOX 5 Atlanta during the chain's 70th anniversary coverage last year. The founders built the concept around 24/7 table service, a model that has stuck for seven decades.
That round-the-clock reliability even earned the chain an unusual role in disaster response. The Federal Emergency Management Agency unofficially uses a three-tiered “Waffle House Index” to gauge storm severity based on whether local restaurants stay open, run on limited generator power, or close entirely, according to PBS News. Former emergency management official Craig Fugate coined the metric back in 2004.
Batesville itself carries its own long history, having been platted in 1821. With construction nearly finished and hiring underway, the wait for a 24-hour plate of hash browns in Batesville appears to be nearing its end.
