Waffle Shop

As you might know if you are one of my 80+ Facebook Friends, the 80th Waffle Shop is being held this week at Christ Episcopal Church in downtown Dayton. This event marks the 8th year yours truly has served as general chair. I was asked to speak on Waffle Shop as part of parish stewardship last Sunday. As this week’s blog, I thought I’d share some thoughts on this rich and beautiful event. Below is an excerpt from that address.

Waffle Shop, I am proud to say, is a dynamic act of hospitality that has been offered by the Christ Church congregation to our neighbors for many years. I’ve had an enlightening week reading over the fine History of Waffle Shop written and assembled by parishioner Phyllis Risner five years ago for our 75th anniversary event. As Phyllis reports, even though we count 1929 as the first official Waffle Shop, funds were raised by the women of the church starting in 1883 at an Annual Lunch and Sale. So in a way you could say this is a 125th anniversary.

By 1928, the one day event was called the Annual Bazaar, Luncheon and Dinner. On the menu? You could get a turkey dinner for $1 a plate. Or you could get a bread and butter sandwich for a nickel. Mince and pumpkin pie? 15 cents. And I might add the parish women sold a cook book that year. Special thanks to Penny Nixon and her crew for the two-year effort bringing the newest Christ Church cookbook into fruition, The Great Lady Cooks, available for sale as we speak.

In 1929, during another tough economic time, the women of Christ Church gave birth to Waffle Shop. As Dayton Newspapers columnist and Christ Church parishioner Roz Young reported in 1961, the idea of a waffle meal/fundraiser came from an Episcopal parish in Memphis -- Calvary Episcopal. One of our parishioners, Mrs. Rowan Greer, heard about the waffle event from her sister in Tennessee, and the Annual Lunch and Sale was changed forever. In 1929, that first Waffle Shop served 1,635 meals -- not too far off from what we do today -- but they did it over twelve days. We do it these days in four. Back then, by the way, you could get ‘Waffles with Pig Meat Sausage or Creamed Chicken’ for 40 cents. The women made just over $290 in 1929. All of it went to keep the Parish House in good order.

Since that time Waffle Shop has seen some changes. Back in the day when downtown was the commercial center of the region, Waffle Shop served not only lunch, but dinner, too, on Monday and Thursday, the nights the stores stayed open ‘til 9. In 1959, Waffle Shop set the record of serving downtown workers and Christmas shoppers with 751 meals in one day.

It is the deep historical connection of Waffle Shop to past parishioners of Christ Church that still lights me up, in this, my eighth year as general chair. Every time I see Mary Dahlberg laughing in her waffle apron, or Lisa Loftin explaining a new craft offered in the bazaar, or Maureen Boyles pouring batter into the carry-out waffle iron, or Ann Pettee wrapping up a breakable treasure for the trip home from Elsie’s Attic, or Donna Boensch directing a new server where to find decaf coffee in the dining room -- I sense a deep connection to Christ Church folk who did these same things so often for so many years. We are connected to Mrs. Lamar Fluhart, the first Waffle Shop chair; Rev. Phil Porter; Mary Kerr; Mrs. William Jarrett; Mrs. James Stuart; Clara Eberly; Ruthanna Austin; Elsie Hall. It was these Christ Church folk along with so many others who contributed to making Christ Church downtown Dayton’s own church. So many people have felt welcome here.

It is an amazing thing to see this building, The Great Lady of First Street, fill up with neighbors. I know that’s how I felt back in 2002 for my first real, full-time Waffle Shop. Seeing city and county commissioners, downtown workers, attorneys with their whole office, the mayor, the paper’s Dale Huffman, channel 2‘s Jim Bucher, and oh, so many friends, come through the lunch line -- all feeling welcome -- many with smiles on their faces -- has given me the sense that we are doing God’s work right here in God’s house. A house that we are commissioned to care for during our tenure. Back in the 1930s, Waffle Shop profits went for parish needs. Now we are proud to tell our visitors that 80% of proceeds -- over $7,000 last year and over $50,000 since 2003 -- go to the likes of Daybreak, The Other Place, The International Peace Museum, an after-school program in Russia, The Society for the Advancement of Culture and Welfare in Sierra Leone, and CARE House over by Children’s Medical, among others. It makes me proud.

Every day before we open Waffle Shop, the staff gathers for announcements and a prayer. At the end of that prayer, I like to remind everybody of a note I saw pinned to a door in a social service agency in Appalachia some years ago. It said, ‘If you can’t see the face of Christ in the next person who comes through the door, you might as well quit looking.’ Christ Church folk have opened that door many times, from the Annual Lunch and Sale in 1883 through so many Waffle Shops starting in 1929. We’ll be on the outlook for Christ coming through our door again this week. I sure hope you can join us. It’s a beautiful thing.

Today’s elder idea: Great food, quick service -- a happy place to meet friends.

Waffle Shop catch phrase c. 1930