Waffle House
American restaurant chain
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| October 8 2024 | Waffle House announced the closure of 25 locations in the Tampa Bay area and 8 locations in the Fort Myers area in preparation for Hurricane Milton. |
| September 2024 | A Waffle House in Crawfordville closed ahead of Hurricane Helene, raising the Waffle House Index to red. |
| September 8 2024 | Walter G. Ehmer, who had overseen Waffle House since 2012, died. |
| 2022 | 35 Waffle House locations in Florida closed in preparation for Hurricane Ian, which was expected to be severely destructive. The hurricane eventually made landfall as a Category 4 storm with intense winds, peaking as a Category 5 over the Atlantic Ocean. |
| May 2022 | Jeffrey Reinking was found guilty of 'unlawful delivery of a firearm' for returning weapons to his son, and was sentenced to 18 months in prison. |
| February 5 2022 | Travis Reinking was sentenced to life in prison without parole. |
| February 4 2022 | Reinking is convicted of all four murder charges related to the Waffle House shooting. |
| February 4 2022 | Travis Reinking was found guilty on all counts, including four counts of premeditated first-degree murder, after a jury deliberation of nearly five hours. The defense's plea of not guilty by reason of insanity was unsuccessful. |
| January 31 2022 | Reinking is put on trial for four counts of first-degree premeditated murder after previously being found incompetent to stand trial due to severe schizophrenia. |
| January 25 2022 | The trial against Travis Reinking began with jury selection. |
| January 2020 | Prosecutors announced they would not seek the death penalty against Travis Reinking, meaning he would face up to life without parole. |
| September 17 2019 | A Waffle House in Goose Creek, South Carolina experienced a Hepatitis A exposure incident, with an employee testing positive, leading to immediate facility shutdown and investigation by DHEC officials. |
| October 2018 | Travis Reinking was found competent to stand trial again after his previous mental health commitment. |
| August 2018 | A judge found Travis Reinking incompetent to stand trial and ordered him committed to a mental hospital for treatment after forensic psychologists determined he suffered from severe schizophrenia. |
| April 2018 | Reinking stole a BMW X6 from a Brentwood, Tennessee dealership, which was later tracked using the vehicle's built-in GPS. |
| April 23 2018 | Reinking is captured, ending a 34-hour manhunt following the Waffle House shooting. |
| April 22 2018 | Travis Jeffrey Reinking conducts a mass shooting at a Waffle House in Antioch, Nashville, Tennessee, fatally shooting four people and injuring two others with an AR-15 style rifle. James Shaw Jr. intervenes and wrestles the rifle away from Reinking, stopping the shooting spree. |
| April 3 2018 | Reinking was fired from his job for claiming that people, including other employees, were 'after him'. |
| January 2018 | Reinking began working as a crane and construction worker in the Nashville area. |
| 2017 | A Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request revealed emails indicating that the Waffle House Index was a personal project of Craig Fugate, with no official connection to FEMA's National Business Emergency Operations Center. |
| November 2017 | The court dismissed Reinking's case after he successfully completed the community service program. |
| July 2017 | U.S. Secret Service arrested Reinking near the White House after he crossed a barrier, claiming he wanted to 'set up a meeting with the president'. He was charged with unlawful entry and entered a deferred prosecution agreement. |
| June 2017 | An incident occurred where Reinking was reported carrying a rifle while wearing a pink dress and using an expletive before leaving in his vehicle. |
| April 26 2017 | Tom Forkner, the other founder of the Waffle House brand, passed away within two months of Joe Rogers Sr. |
| March 2017 | Reinking quit his job as a crane operator, believing police were following him and that his 'last chance' to marry Taylor Swift was approaching. |
| March 3 2017 | Joe Rogers Sr., one of the founders of the Waffle House brand, passed away. |
| May 2016 | Sheriff's deputies responded to a call from Reinking's parents, where a paramedic reported Reinking's delusions that Taylor Swift was stalking him and hacking his phone. |
| May 2011 | FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate coined the term 'Waffle House Index' following the Joplin tornado, when two Waffle House restaurants in Joplin remained open during the disaster, highlighting the chain's resilience and disaster preparedness. |
This contents of the box above is based on material from the Wikipedia articles Nashville Waffle House shooting, Waffle House & Waffle House Index, which are released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.