I wanted to make sure to post about this before the spring semester ends.  I have made a few visits to the Waffle Shop in the past few months.

The Waffle Shop is a class project for the undergraduate art course – The Storefront Project which is taught at Carnegie Mellon.  Last semester it was Waffle Shop – a reality tv show.  For the spring semester it is Waffle Shop – The Talk Show.  The venue, which is the former tuxedo shop located at the corner of Highland and Baum in East Liberty has seen quite a transformation this semester.   The professor who was serving up waffles when I was there recently said there are more design students in the class this semester.

I think this project has been great for the neighborhood – what was once a vacant storefront is now filled with a range of people – CMU students, waffle seekers like me and even some high school students from the neighborhood.

The talk show aspect makes this more than just a place to eat waffles but a place to start a community conversation.  I am not sure what will happen to the shop over the summer – but I do hope that this project will continue in the fall – or someone will make this a real waffle shop.

Some things to note…

• very limited hours – I want to point this out because most people think this is a real waffle shop – but since this is a student project the hours are very different from your average Ihop.
  • Friday 11pm-3am
  • Satruday  11pm-3am
  • Sunday 10am-2pm
• they do serve waffles – but just waffles – no eggs or toast here – but there are usually 2 type of waffles – – I think the choco waffles are great and the last time I was there friend of IheartPGH enjoyed the meat lovers waffle.
• cash only

So if you are in the neighborhood and would like to participate in a community talk show/college course – The Waffle Shop is worth a stop.

• Post-Gazette Article on the Waffle Shop, December 2008

Here is a clip from the Waffle Shop Show – Episode 4

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6y3u6pPBU4&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]

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• ‘snackbot’ by carnegie mellon university (designboom.com)
• Art and Code Symposium (makezine.com)
• Waffle Shop Show Episode 2 (pittsburgh.metblogs.com)

(I really want to get a Waffle Shop t-shirt – or maybe the Waffle shop should set up a Spreadhsirt shop 😉 – regular IheartPGH readers know that I work for Spreadshirt and I am passionate about getting more people to sell cool t-shirts).