Hurricane Milton: Waffle House closing dozens of Florida restaurants in Orlando, Tampa ahead of landfall

ORLANDO, Fla. - Waffle House is closing dozens of its restaurants in Florida as Hurricane Milton nears the state's Gulf Coast.

The Atlanta-based breakfast chain has closed what appears to be all of its restaurants in the Orlando metro, as well as restaurants in Ocala, Daytona Beach, Fort Myers, and Tampa.

In an updated post on X, formerly Twitter, Waffle House had several of its restaurants listed as closed. Some restaurants in Gainesville, north of Ocala, and in Miami remained open.

Closing during a hurricane, particularly one that is expected to be dangerous and destructive, is not uncommon. Florida schools, government offices, theme parks, and grocery stores in Central Florida have closed ahead of Milton.

Restaurants on Florida's eastern side remained open, according to that post on X.

The "Waffle House Index" during hurricane season

Have you heard of the "Waffle House Index?" Yeah, it's real and one of the ways FEMA and government officials assess a hurricane's potential destructive power.

Waffle House is apparently known for staying open amid severe weather, and quickly reopening should severe weather force a restaurant to close.

The index uses a stoplight approach – green, yellow, and red.

• Green means Waffle House is serving a full menu, which signals that the restaurant is open, has electricity, and people.
• Yellow means the restaurant is open with a limited menu, potentially indicating that the restaurant is running on a generator or has low supplies.
• Red means the restaurant is closed, indicating the weather is so severe that the restaurant cannot operate, or it is too dangerous to operate.

Waffle House said it has 1,600 restaurants "fromt he mid-Atlantic to Florida and across the Gulf Coast," which makes it particularly vulnerable to hurricanes, according to its website.

In its own post about the story, FEMA said whether a business is open or closed can help indicate the impact a hurricane can have on a small community.

"Businesses in communities are often some of the biggest drivers of recovery. If stores can open, people can go back to work. If people can go back to work, they can return to at least one piece of a normal life—and that little piece of normalcy can make a big difference.

If a store like a Home Depot or a Lowe’s or your local hardware store can open, that means people can get the supplies they need in order to rebuild, to clean up the muck and progress along the path to recovery," FEMA said in a 2017 blog post.