Leonida Profile
Hank's Waffles is open. That is the brand. Not the waffles, not the coffee, not the pie case that has had the same three pies rotating for longer than the current staff can account for. The brand is that the lights are on right now and the grill is running and nobody will ask you to leave.
Every location is identical. Counter seating, four booths, a television in the corner showing local news or sport depending on the time of day. The staff have worked the shift that other jobs do not offer. They have made peace with the hours. The service is efficient and free of judgment, which is the correct approach for the clientele at this hour.
The highway locations are the core business. Leonida's commercial corridors at night move truck drivers, shift workers, and people returning from the Keys at two in the morning. All of them pass a Hank's Waffles. Most of them stop at least once. The parking lot is never empty.
Never asking anyone to leave has a downside. A counter got hit first in a string of stickups that worked its way across the city, doors open twenty-four hours, exactly the kind of unguarded target the brand's whole identity is built around.