Who Is Bert, And Why Is Waffle House's Chili Named After Him?

Even if you're not lucky enough to live in a town with a Waffle House in it, you probably know the name, or have seen the bold yellow sign snapping by from the highway. Operating 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, this dependable Southern-styled diner chain is well-known for serving its many styles of waffles, huge, cheap breakfasts all day, its late-night, last-call crowds, and a handful of iconic menu items that have become inordinately famous over the years. But beyond those plates of scattered, smothered, and covered hash browns, or the universe's dullest plain grits, there's one menu item that's developed a well-deserved cult following over the years: the restaurant's unusually-named Bert's Chili.

This bowl of chili, filled with pinto beans, ground beef, sausage, tomatoes, onions, and a secret spice blend, gets its own special label because it was created by former short-order-cook-turned-Waffle-House-President-and-COO Bert Thornton when the chain was expanding into Texas. And it was such a success for the company that not only does it currently sell more than 11 million bowls every year, but it even got immortalized in song (no seriously, Google it) as one of the novelty tracks loaded into the jukeboxes at locations all across the country.

Bert Thornton began his career with Waffle House in 1971, joining a fraternity brother of his from Georgia Tech whose father had helped start the restaurant chain back in the 1950s. Neither man planned on running a restaurant empire, but both found their place with the company, and Thornton would go from flipping waffles and working the grill as a management trainee to vice president of the company in four years. In the 1980s, while working in Texas, he was asked to come up with a new recipe for the company's chili, and the version he created became such a hit that his name got attached to every bowl served. Thornton spent 40 years working for Waffle House. At the height of his career, he was responsible for operations at every single location, and spent much of his time traveling the country checking up on the quality of his namesake chili — along with everything else on the menu.

Bert's chili, in classic Texas style, is heavy on the beans. It's meaty and has a little kick to it, but not so much that it wouldn't play well in all zip codes. And while it is traditionally served by itself in a cup or bowl, its best application (arguably) is as the final element in a plate of hash browns ordered, in official Waffle House lingo, scattered (on the grill), smothered (with sauteed onions), covered (with cheese), and, finally, topped with a generous helping of Thornton's most enduring addition to late-night American diner culture.