Waffle House to open Bear location

Waffle House is opening its fourth Delaware location in Bear. It already operates this location in Middletown. | PHOTO COURTESY OF GOOGLE

BEAR – Waffle House, the all-hours, breakfast-focused restaurant, will open its fourth Delaware location, officials reported.

The Georgia-based restaurant chain already operates locations in Middletown, Dover and Smyrna. The new location off U.S. Route 40 in Bear is also less than 7 miles from a location in Elkton, Maryland.

The chain is well-known for its Southern roots, having been founded in the Peach State 64 years ago, and its operational resiliency, often being the only business open following natural disasters. It’s so well-known in fact that the Federal Emergency Management Agency calls its response level index the “Waffle House Index.”

Waffle House will reportedly raze a 2,000-square-foot building at 1450 Pulaski Highway that was most recently a Got-A-Doc Urgent Care location. It purchased the building and ground on Jan. 29 for an estimated $362,480, according to a Delaware Business Times analysis of county deed records.

Patterson-Woods Commercial Properties Principal Rich Dudek represented the seller, Maggie Group Inc., which is operated by Jay Pierce Sr., of Wilmington.

More changes are coming to Elizabeth Plaza in Bear. | MAP COURTESY OF PATTERSON WOODS.

Waffle House will join other businesses, including Game Changers Sports Bar & Grille and Paul Mitchell School of Cosmetology, in the retail and office center known as Elizabeth Plaza. Waffle House plans to do a ground up development and open to the public by the end of 2020.

“It was a pleasure to work with the Waffle House real estate team – they were patient and professional every step of the way. On behalf of the ownership of Elizabeth Plaza, we look forward to the addition, and I am sure the neighborhood looks forward to a family name that has been in the breakfast industry since 1955,” Dudek said in a statement.

Dudek, the exclusive listing agent for Elizabeth Plaza, noted that there are other available spaces, including a 1,350-square-foot laundromat for lease and a proposed 16,000-square-foot building for sale or lease that has the potential to be subdivided into separate units.

By Jacob Owens

jowens@delawarebusinesstimes.com