Olde prices back today

Ye Olde isn't over the hill yet.

The Franklin Street breakfast staple Ye Olde Waffle Shoppe, which opened its doors 35 years ago today, still maintains the old-English charm its owners envisioned for it in 1972.

Crisscrossed wooden beams, recovered from an old church in Winston-Salem when the shop was first designed, still adorn its stucco walls.

And the restaurant, which sports a 100.0 sanitation score, still has an open kitchen where guests can converse with the cooks and dishwashers as they eat their breakfasts.

To commemorate the shop's birthday, owners Jimmy and Linda Chris are bringing back the shop's 1972 menu. Ordinarily you'd pay $4.35 for a waffle.

But today, using prices from three decades past, it'll cost you $1.10. Daisy Maness, the store's general manager, said the celebration is made possible by an abbreviated menu and donations by the companies from which the shop has been purchasing its ingredients for years.

The building that houses Ye Olde has been in the family for three generations. The Chris' two adult daughters, who have both worked at the restaurant, make the fourth. Jimmy Chris' grandmother purchased the building in 1941, and various businesses - including a shoe store and a dentist office - originally occupied the space.

Then Jimmy and Linda Chris received a life-changing call from Jimmy's father, Pete, in the early 1970s. The couple, who lived in Atlanta, had planned to manage a restaurant in Texas, but Pete urged them instead to move to Chapel Hill to design their dream restaurant from scratch.

"My father knew I always wanted to operate my own business and offered me an opportunity," Jimmy Chris said. "He also didn't want us to move too far away from Atlanta with a granddaughter on the way."

Jimmy Chris opened Ye Olde Waffle Shoppe with his then-partner and college buddy Al Thomas, and the rest is history. Chris said he has thought about expanding the business in the past but ultimately decided it would take away from its unique character.

"We're not a chain operation, and we're not fast food," he said. "We want to consistently have good food, good service and a good atmosphere."

And Maness said the small size cultivates a strong sense of belonging. "We're all a family here," she said. "We have a really good working relationship. We try to treat people like they are coming into our home and they are our guests."

Jock Lauterer, a lecturer in the School of Journalism, eats a bacon, egg and cheese biscuit at the shop five days a week.

"It is unequivocally the best in town," Lauterer said. "It's not just the food. I love the way it feels to be in proximity to the people who work there."

He said each day he goes to the restaurant, he has a unique learning experience. He said he particularly enjoys conversations with head cook Carlos Hernandez to brush up on his Spanish. Hernandez started out at Ye Olde as a dishwasher in 1998 but moved up to cook position two years later. Maness said it seems to be a trend for staff members to find a niche in Ye Olde and stick with it.

"Over the years we've had a tremendous staff," Maness said. "They must enjoy it, or they wouldn't stick around."

Both Maness and the Chrises said that they hope to be running the shop for about five more years but that they won't be handing over the helm to just anyone.

"I hope that whoever takes over keeps the tradition because 35 years is a long time," Maness said.

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