Come to Atlanta, down the street from me are two completely separate Waffle Houses built right next to each other that share the same parking lot.

In Macon (a couple of hours down I-75 from Atlanta) there were for a long time two Waffle Houses on either side of the interstate at the Pio Nono exit

How do you decide which one to enter?

IIRC one of them is for catering only

There's a pair off of I-85 just north of Atlanta like that (see other comments to that post), so yeah, it wouldn't surprise me. Do both of them show up on Waffle House's map? It looks like they don't put the catering-only locations there - I guess they don't want people showing up?

This sounds possible, but where is it?

A quick Kagi found a few of them, apparently a Waffle House has to be a certain size, and if they can do more business, it spawns another one.

They're on Chamblee Tucker Road right off of I-85 in NE Atlanta. Here's a screenshot from Google Maps: https://ibb.co/0tdBRR1

Now that I think about it I actually used to drive past them sometimes! Only one of them shows up on Waffle House's own map, though.

Here's an article talking about double Waffle Houses, from 2019, when the older of the two at Buford Highway / I-285 closed: https://www.tonetoatl.com/2019/07/Waffle-House-Closed-Buford... - they mention the pair on Chamblee-Tucker. Apparently one is catering-only, which probably explains why it doesn't show on the map. They also mention pairs that used to exist at Clairmont Road near I-85 and Lawrenceville Highway near I-285. Apparently WH is trying to reduce the number of these.

It's a running joke that any driving directions in the Atlanta Metro Area will include the words "go down Peachtree" and "when you see the waffle house..."

When we first moved into our house the neighbor kid made sure we knew where the nearest Waffle House was. It’s on Peachtree (Industrial).

>I don't think Waffle House has locations in any major Urban location.

Columbus, Ohio and Atlanta, Georgia both have Waffle Houses. I don't think it's universally a rule that they stay out of cities.

Here's their map: https://locations.wafflehouse.com

Waffle House started just outside of Atlanta, and you can still see that. In other big cities they seem to stay outside of the core - I suspect they don't want to have locations without parking. (But off the top of my head I can name two Atlanta-area Waffle Houses that don't have their own parking, namely the one right off Centennial Olympic Park and the one in downtown Decatur.)

The one at Georgia Tech also doesn't have parking

Good for people watching, that one is. We went there for breakfast every single day when I was in Atlanta to retrieve my OMSCS degree (we were staying in the GT hotel in the same building, so it was super convenient). I'm easy to please, and my waistline is better because we don't have Waffle House in the PNW. Maybe I'd grow tired of it, but no guarantees.

Also New Orleans (by the VA Hospital). And I recall eating at one in on the northside of Dallas (which may or may not be "urban")

To your first point, they are prolific throughout the South. Very prominent in Atlanta

They have quite a few in Houston, only the 4th largest metro area in the US.

If you look at the map (https://locations.wafflehouse.com) they seem to avoid the central part of Houston though, roughly anything inside Beltway 8. Generally they have locations in the suburbs of big cities but not in the big cities themselves. Except Atlanta, as has already been pointed out.

(Disclaimer: I have never been to Houston except to change planes in its airport.)

Downtown Atlanta for sure. There was also one near me when I lived in downtown Colorado Springs, which has half a million people.

It may vary on your definition of major - but they definitely do in the southeast and lower midwest.

Every large city in the southeast.