Eighty six TikTok.
While a series of ludicrous menu hacks threatens to give fast-food chains serious indigestion, at least one Waffle House location refuses to let eligible customers spoil the restaurant tradition.
“Order from the menu. We don’t do anything you’ve seen on TikTok,” reads a posted warning — captured in video by TikTok user @officialgodbodycash — on the checkout counter at what appears to be an all-day breakfast slinger in the Atlanta area.
“TikTok is taking on everything but Waffle House,” the user joked.
The scrawled sign, alerting guests to the strict new – albeit unofficial – policy appears on the heels of hugely popular posts on the social media site, such as featuring a page of pickles. The gargantuan concoction, posted with the hashtag #pregnancycravings, has attracted more than 5.7 million viewers in just six days.
The sign said sternly, “Order from the menu. We don’t do anything you saw on TikTok!!” TikTok/Official God Body Money
“TikTok takes over everything but Waffle House,” read the sign posted by TikToker @officialgodbodycash82.TikTok/officialgodbodycash
Commentators jumped in support of Waffle House and chimed in with the comments.
“SICK of the TikTok specials,” wrote one user.
“Thank god when I was a waitress people always wanted to change the menu,” said another.
Not everyone felt the same.
“So the internet is giving them more business and they don’t want it?” one user asked.
Custom menu items à la TikTok were a nightmare for fast-food workers, who wasted time and resources recreating the viral items.
However, some of these chains have occasionally tried to jump into the viral food craze — Starbucks even added the Pink Drink, a strawberry-acai drink with hints of caffeine and coconut milk, as an official menu item in 2017 after it exploded in increasingly popular on social media.
And more recently, fast-casual chain Chipotle, which is particularly vulnerable to menu hacking thanks to a highly customizable menu for online orders, allowed customers to use a TikTok “hack” that turned a standard steak quesadilla into transformed into something like a Philly cheesesteak.
A location of Georgia-based all-day breakfast chain Waffle House isn’t following social media food trends. AFP via Getty Images
Waffle House recently made national headlines when a former employee went viral for punching away a chair thrown by a customer during a brawl in an alleged act of self-defense. As a result of the incident, which is said to have happened in 2021, the employee claimed she was blacklisted by the company.
Waffle House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.