Waffle House is planting its yellow sign in Kaufman, with plans for a new ground-up restaurant at 2210 Old Kemp Highway, sandwiched between a McDonald's and a Walmart Supercenter along U.S. Highway 175. The project carries a $300,000 price tag and follows the chain's standard 1,840-square-foot layout, according to state regulatory filings.
The filings were reported by WhatNow Dallas, which detailed the Kaufman project as part of Waffle House's broader regional buildout across North Texas. Per the outlet's reporting, the restaurant is expected to complete permitting by February 2028, though public filing dates are subject to change and not always definitive. Site selection for the new diner puts it directly on the four-lane Highway 175 corridor that Kaufman city officials and the Kaufman Economic Development Corporation have been actively targeting to recruit national retail chains, a stretch of roadway located about 35 minutes southeast of downtown Dallas.
A County Growing Faster Than Almost Anywhere Else
The timing lines up with explosive population growth in Kaufman County, which grew by 6% between July 2023 and July 2024 — the second-fastest rate of any county in the nation — and is projected to surpass 220,000 residents by late 2026, according to inForney.com. That influx is already reshaping the city itself: roughly 3,000 new housing units are currently planned or under construction in Kaufman, a wave that could nearly double the municipality's population, per the Kaufman Economic Development Corporation's April 2026 figures.
Local officials appear to be leaning into that growth rather than just reacting to it. The city and its economic development arm have been working to convert Highway 175 into a regional commercial hub, pairing anchor tenants like Walmart with roadside chains eager to capture commuter traffic, according to the same economic development corporation and the City of Kaufman. Waffle House isn't new to the county — state facility records show the chain already operates in nearby Terrell along Highway 34 South, a location that underwent a renovation in late 2022.
Part of a Bigger Texas Rollout
Kaufman is just one stop on a much longer list. Per WhatNow's reporting, Waffle House also has locations planned in Rockwall, on the North I-35 frontage road in Hillsboro, and at Milrany Lane and Highway 121 in Melissa. Texas commercial registration filings show the chain is simultaneously building other standardized 1,840-square-foot diners in Waxahachie along Butcher Road and in Liberty Hill off Highway 29, according to the San Antonio Express-News.
The Kaufman project also echoes a similar filing Hoodline covered in January, when Waffle House submitted plans for another Chisholm Trail Ranch diner in southwest Fort Worth as part of rapid retail buildouts along the Dallas-Fort Worth outer loop, per Hoodline. Industry data compiled by ScrapeHero shows Waffle House now operates more than 2,000 locations across 25 states, with Texas ranking as its seventh-largest market with over 135 restaurants.
A 24-Hour Institution With Southern Roots
WhatNow's reporting notes that Cantrell, a Waffle House representative quoted in the outlet's coverage, described Kaufman as an ideal market for the chain. Waffle House has built its national reputation on round-the-clock service and its signature hash browns — “scattered, smothered, and covered” — a menu shorthand familiar to regulars across its footprint. The chain traces its roots back to 1955, when it opened its first restaurant in Georgia, and it marked its 70th anniversary in September 2025, according to WABE.
Not all of the growth around Kaufman is about restaurants and retail. Eleanor's Coffee Shop is planned for Kaufman Square, another sign of the commercial activity clustering around the county's expanding population base. Even as national chains rush in, the pace of that growth has drawn scrutiny elsewhere in the industry — a Clark Atlanta University working paper published in May found that over half of surveyed Waffle House employees across the South received less than a week's advance notice for their work schedules, a detail Hoodline reported in its coverage of the study.
