Waffle House hopes to hit the spot at Virginia Tech
Waffle House plans to open a location at 610 North Main Street before football season. Photo by Mike Shaw | The Burgs
BLACKSBURG – Since 1955, Waffle House has been serving waffles, omelets and coffee to its customers on a 24-hour, 365-day basis all over the country.
Now, the chain has its sights set on Virginia Tech.
Jeff Cole, Waffle House’s vice president of real estate, said the chain has taken a little while to realize how well it can do on college campuses.
Waffle House usually creates standalone restaurants, but is now in the business of converting existing spaces, especially in college towns, Cole said.
Cole said Waffle House plans to convert the former TCBY and Revive Salon & Spa spaces at 610 N. Main St. with the intention of opening before football season. Construction will begin soon, Cole added.
“We have now started to convert space on campuses in order to get into the market,” Cole said. “We’ve been very pleased with success we’ve had at locations like Georgia Tech and the University of Alabama.”
The chain will hire about 60 full- and part-time employees during the initial opening phase, Cole said.
“We plan to open more college locations in the near future, including one at Virginia Commonwealth University,” Cole said.
“Right now, we’re looking forward to being in Blacksburg.”
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Please tell me part of this will include a major facelift for the building? It’s a bit of a sad property in the midst of many surrounding upgrades.
Comment by Local Color — June 8, 2012 @ 2:05 pm
Parking for that is going to be an absolute mess. It’s already mostly inadequate for the Taco Bell and other businesses in that center, especially considering that Castle’s across the street has almost no parking, and Stellar One just put up towing signs with steep $150 fines (the church has a similar policy as well), plus storage fees. And most lots on that end of town have similar towing setups…and with the Squires lot on the campus gone for the Performing Arts Center, it’s not really all that great to go to that stretch of the Town given that the available parking is so limited, and so highly enforced.
Comment by Other John — June 8, 2012 @ 5:35 pm
I like Waffles.
Comment by Jeremy D. — June 11, 2012 @ 9:11 am
Other John, the owner of that lot has stated it is not for customers of Castle’s. Besides, the target demographic of the Waffle House is going to be people walking around downtown after the bars close.
Comment by Dustin the wind — June 17, 2012 @ 5:38 pm
That’s what I figured, Dustin. Castle’s success is going to depend on people being able to drive and park. Waffle House is a good quarter mile from College Ave…longer than the walk to Subway where the owner just closed because of a lack of VT student foot traffic. I hope they do well, but I think they will rely on more vehicular traffic, although there is a bus stop not too far away that might help.
But for Castle’s, without parking nearby…and there is no public parking north of Wilson/Progress, they will struggle to maintain their business…every parking lot within about a 1/4 mile radius is privately-owned with various towing rules in place, or on-street parking where a Town permit is needed. Not a recipe for success.
But maybe if the parking deck on Turner Street for the new development going in can get constructed reasonably soon, it will help since I’ve heard it’s supposed to be a similar venture to the one at Kent Square. I don’t mind walking a reasonable distance from parking to my destination, but the North Main part of downtown definitely suffers from a lack of public parking…the core of downtown (College/Draper/Roanoke/Washington) really does not.
Comment by Other John — June 18, 2012 @ 3:51 pm