Waffle House
By: Daniel P. Smith | Categories: Alumni Celebrations
“I’m embarrassed to say our previous chili came straight from a can,” confesses Thornton, who was pulled into Rogers’ enterprising vision to build the then-regional Waffle House concept into a national brand two years prior.
Despite possessing a limited culinary background, Thornton embraced the task. From a frozen chili base, the former Tech football player concocted four distinct recipes mixing and matching ingredients such as bacon, sausage, tomato juice, and jalapeños. He then dispersed the four unique batches to Waffle House restaurants located in each corner of the chili-obsessed Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex before patiently awaiting feedback.
With the Lewisville, Texas, recipe emerging the clear winner, Waffle House had its new national chili recipe, which Rogers promptly labeled “Bert’s Chili.”
“That was Joe’s way of getting me to supervise the chili quality for all eternity,” jokes Thornton, who, true to Rogers’ hypothesis, has spent the five subsequent decades taste-testing his namesake chili in every Waffle House restaurant he visits.
Waffle House—a chain of about 2,000 restaurants now helmed by Tech’s Walt Ehmer, IE 89—sells some 11 million bowls of Bert’s Chili annually. The internet, meanwhile, hosts dozens of recipes dedicated to recreating the popular dish at home as well as online forums littered with different ways to customize the meal, from adding grilled jalapeños or hash browns to even layering the chili on salad.
“People monkey with it all the time,” says Thornton, who retired as Waffle House’s president and chief operating officer in 2011 but remains its vice chairman emeritus.
Though Thornton initially rejected any pride of authorship with Bert’s Chili, a dutiful nod to Waffle House’s “one-class culture,” the chili’s popularity and cult fandom regularly prompts speaking requests and calls from media.
“The success of Bert’s Chili goes well beyond my wildest dreams,” Thornton says.
