Waffle House as A Fighting Game Stage

About

Waffle House as A Fighting Game Stage refers to joking campaigns, fan art and memes imagining a Waffle House parking lot as a venue for a fight in a fighting video game such as Street Fighter or Tekken due to the chain restaurant's online reputation as being the site of many public brawls. Appearing in numerous edits and posts in the early 2020s, this ultimately led fans to petition Tekken director Katsuhiro Harada to make a Waffle House stage in March 2024, causing him to publicly voice his confusion about the widespread interest in the idea.

Origin

The American 24-hour chain restaurant Waffle House has a reputation for being the site of multiple public altercations, some of which have become viral videos. As such, fans began joking about the restaurant being a stage in a fighting video game in the early 2020s. It was referenced on Twitter by user 2DJazz^[1] on March 6th, 2021, gaining over 140 retweets and 1,000 likes (shown below).

One of the earliest examples of a parody was an October 4th, 2021, TikTok by user @realisticwith2rs,^[2] who made a parody "Continue" screen in front of a Waffle House parking lot as part of the You Lose, Continue? trend. The video gained over 2,500 views on the app in two and a half years (shown below).

Spread

Over the following several years, the idea of Waffle House being a fighting game stage led to the creation of multiple memes and fighting game mods. On June 14th, 2022, Twitter / X user @Murdoink^[4] posted a video that edited Mortal Kombat gameplay over a picture of Waffle House, gaining over 50 retweets and 180 likes in roughly two years (shown below, top).

On April 22nd, 2023, Twitter user @RaitoADV^[3] posted art imagining a King Of Fighters match in front of a Waffle House, gaining over 720 retweets and 3,100 likes in one year (shown below, bottom).

On April 1st, 2023, the indie fighting game Them's Fightin' Herds posted a video showing off a Waffle House stage as an April Fools' Day prank, gaining over 780 retweets and 2,500 likes in one year (shown below).

Katsuhiro Harada Tweets

On March 30th, 2024, Tekken director Katsuhiro Harada quote-tweeted^[4] a request to make Waffle House a Tekken stage asking the site to explain the context behind the request. The post gained over 19,000 retweets and 105,000 likes in three days (shown below).

In the ensuing thread, users explained Waffle House's reputation as a site for public brawls. On March 31st, after he learned about the context behind the consistent Waffle House requests, he indicated that he would send a proposal to the restaurant chain to make a Waffle House location a stage, but noted that if they said no, it would be impossible. His follow-up tweet^[5] gained over 5,600 retweets and 45,000 likes in two days (shown below).

Various Examples

Search Interest

Unavailable.

External References