Tom Forkner

Tom Forkner is a lawyer, real estate salesman and co-founder of Waffle House, one of the most successful restaurant chains in the Southeast. [ [ http://www.newgeorgiaencyclopedia.org/nge/Multimedia.jsp?id=m-8615 NGE: Waffle House] ]

Early life

Thomas F. Forkner was born June 14, 1918, in Hawkinsville, Georgia. At the time, his family was in the dairy business, and his father was one of the first to successfully grow alfalfa and crimson clover in Georgia. In 1924, his father accepted an offer from George Francis Willis to become Superintendent and General Manager of Avondale Estates. His father founded his own real estate company, Ben S. Forkner Reality, in 1933 to sell homesites and was a local civic leader. [ [Avondale Estates By Terry Martin-Hart page 62] ] Tom attended Young Harris Junior College, graduating in 1937, then went to Woodrow Wilson Law School in Atlanta and began practicing law at age 23. World War II cut short his law practice and he spent 4 years and 9 months in the army. Upon his return, and the death of his father, he turned to his father’s business, Forkner Realty Company, and began a successful career in real estate. Tom Fortner married wife, Martha and they had one son and two daughters.

Waffle House

Joe Rogers, Sr. bought a house from Tom Forkner in Avondale Estates, Georgia in 1949. Joe was working as a regional manager for the now-defunct national breakfast restaurant chain, the Toddle House, headquartered in Memphis, Tennessee. Rogers knew that fast-food shops like McDonalds were just starting and he had an idea for something in-between, a sit-down restaurant with the speed of a drive-in. In early 1955, Joe approached Tom, who lived two doors down the street and proposed a partnership. “He said, ‘You build a restaurant and I’ll show you how to run it,’” recalled Tom Forkner, Waffle House’s other founder and first president of the company. On Labor Day 1955, their dream became a reality–and an icon was born–when the first Waffle House restaurant opened its doors for business in Avondale Estates. There no plans for another Unit, but the first restaurant established the Waffle House tradition of providing the friendliest service in town. When Waffle House opened, only one other restaurant in Atlanta was open 24 hours. Rogers convinced Forkner that in the modern world of interstate highways and television, people would like a restaurant that never closed, not even on Christmas. Forkner was skeptical until he visited his restaurant in the middle of the night.“I thought everyone went to bed at night,” Forkner said, “but I was wrong.”

Customer loyalty developed and the business grew steadily. Two years later, Unit 2 was acquired, but in 1959, Tom’s fast paced, seven day per week schedule ended in a sudden trip to the hospital with multiple ailments. It was a wakeup call that caused him to change his lifestyle dramatically. Stepping back from his real estate work and Waffle House responsibilities, Mr. Forkner adopted a good health plan, which included playing golf for exercise. [ [ http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8927443/ MSNBC: August 15, 2005- Waffle House still dishin’ diner food at 50 by Kristen Wyatt] ]

By 1960, there were four Waffle Houses around Atlanta. Inspired by the rapid expansion of McDonald’s, profits were plunged into expansion, and Waffle House started franchising. In 1961, Joe left Toddle House and went to work full-time at Waffle House®. Tom soon followed. By the late 1960s there were 27 restaurants, and their formula picked up steam. Today Macon, Georgia alone has 10 Waffle House restaurants — and only nine McDonald’s.

Until 1973 the company was made up of about 100 restaurants and restricted its locations mainly to the Deep South, opening a new diner only when Rogers and Forkner had the money and trained personnel to do so. After Rogers's son, Joe Jr., took over operations, Waffle House began aggressively expanding, although the look and quality of the restaurant has never really changed.

Forkner and Rogers no longer run the company, but they still have offices plastered with photographs and trophies at the corporate headquarters in Norcross and they keep up with the business. As of 2008, there were more than 1,500 Waffle Houses (of which the company owned slightly less than half) spread across 25 states, from Arizona in the west to Illinois in the north, but the chain is still rooted deeply in the South and retains a distinctively down-home, blue-collar aura. The highest concentration is in the Atlanta area, where Waffle Houses number 200. The company is privately held and doesn’t regularly disclose annual sales figures, but in 2004 Waffle House reported $415 million in sales. Consider this: Two percent of all eggs produced in the United States for food service end up on a Waffle House plate. Working under the enduring slogan of "Good Food Fast," the chain celebrated its fiftieth anniversary in 2005. Since its inception, Waffle House, open twenty-four hours a day and seven days a week, has grown to become America's second-largest family-style restaurant, behind Denny's.

Golf

It turned out Tom was pretty good with a golf club. As a senior amateur, his accomplishments were as impressive as his off the course successes. Tom Forkner was named the Georgia Senior Champion four times (1968, 1969, 1982, 1986), Georgia Seniors Four-Ball Champion twice (1981, 1982) and International Senior Champion twice (1974, 1980). He was also acknowledged by Golf Digest as a Top 10 National Senior Golfer four times (1974, 1978, 1980, 1986). Among his many other tournament wins, he was the Age 80 and Over Division World Super Seniors Champion in 2003 and 2004. Tom Forkner was inducted into the Georgia Golf Hall of Fame on January 6, 2007. [ [http://www.gghf.org/MEMBER_level2_forkner.htm Georgia Golf Hall of Fame website: Members-Tom Forkner] ]

YHC

Tom has been on the Board of Trustees of Young Harris College since the 1980s and was named to the Young Harris Alumni Hall of Fame in 2005.

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