The next time you dine at your favorite Waffle House in Louisiana, it will cost you more to get those world-famous hashbrowns “scattered, smothered, and covered.”

Waffle House CEO Joe Rogers III recently said that the company is planning to raise menu prices soon.

Rogers told employees in a video message last month that plans are laid out to offset the cost of increased wages by raising menu prices at restaurants. He said the move was necessary to “pay for this journey.”

Of course, most would consider Waffle House a pretty inexpensive place to dine. (Last time I went there, it cost about $20 for me and my bride to eat.)

“Make no mistake, whatever that edge is that we currently have with menu pricing, that is going to shrink a little bit in a few years,” Rogers said. “But our bet is the prevailing talent and attitudes we have behind the counter will be our biggest competitive differentiator of the future.”

Waffle House will be strategic in its price increases. Rogers said that restaurants in major cities — like Dallas and Atlanta — will have more “room” to raise prices than restaurants in “suburban or rural” areas.

“Our menu prices in a rural town are relative to competitors’ menu prices in that rural town. So we may not have as much room to increase prices as we have in a large city.”

The bigger increases in larger cities are designed to offset the higher costs of living for employees working at those locations.

Regarding the exact price increases, Waffle House representatives weren’t ready to disclose that or provide additional details.

With rising prices, customers will have rising expectations, Rogers said.

“This means that our levels of hospitality and service, the cleanliness of our units, and the preparation and portion size of our food, among other things, all need to elevate to a new level if we are going to be successful,” he said.

This latest news piggybacks somewhat off of Waffle House’s announcement in May that it plans to raise workers’ wages via a system designed to begin increasing base pay, provide tenure-based bonus pay, and offer “premiums” for certain shifts.

The first wage increases went into effect in June, according to Rogers’ video message.

Waffle House is based in Norcross, Georgia, and currently operates over 1,900 locations in 25 states, mostly in the South and Midwest.

Louisiana currently has 102 Waffle House restaurants, which is the fourth-most in the country behind Texas, Tennessee, and Alabama.

Toxic gas used in petrochemical manufacturing has been detected at levels a thousand times higher than what is considered safe in Louisiana.

The chemical in question is ethylene oxide, an extremely flammable and colorless gas with a slightly sweet smell. It has a variety of industrial uses, including the production of products like antifreeze, detergents, fibers, and bottles. It’s also used to sterilize medical and food production equipment.

Researchers at Johns Hopkins University recently tested levels of ethylene oxide in the air of southeastern Louisianna using two vans fitted with different but highly sensitive technologies to measure the gas in real-time. 

This part of the state includes “Cancer Alley,” a stretch along the Mississippi River between New Orleans and Baton Rouge that has very high rates of cancer and other health issues among its residents. By coincidence, it also has a significant number of petrochemical plants that pump out all kinds of industrial chemicals, including ethylene oxide. 

Long-term exposure to concentrations of ethylene oxide over 11 parts per trillion is considered problematic to human health due to its ability to directly damage DNA and increase the risk of cancer.

Shockingly, this study found levels as high as 40 parts per billion in areas close to industrial facilities. The concentrations were also found to be way higher than the estimates created by the Environmental Protection Agency.

“We expected to see ethylene oxide in this area. But we didn’t expect the levels that we saw, and they certainly were much, much higher than EPA’s estimated levels,” Peter DeCarlo, senior author and an associate professor of Environmental Health and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University, said in a statement. 

“We’d drive through the industrial areas and saw concentrations hitting 40 parts per billion, which is more a thousand times higher than the accepted risk for lifetime exposure,” DeCarlo said.

The researchers warned that people living near facilities that manufacture and use ethylene oxide could be at a higher risk of cancer. 

“Our findings have really important implications for community residents, especially infants and children. Ethylene oxide has been shown to directly damage DNA, meaning that exposures that occur in early life are more dangerous,” said Keeve Nachman, associate professor of Environmental Health and Engineering and the co-director of the Risk Sciences and Public Policy Institute.

The new study was published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology.