When Alvin Ward saw a video of a disturbance at the Waffle House in Morganton, he knew he had to paint the scene.
The 24-hour restaurant chain has a reputation for being the site of fights and disturbances and viral videos that capture the moment.
The painting that Alvin Ward made depicts a recent disturbance at the Â鶹´«Ã½ Waffle House that was caught on video.
The Â鶹´«Ã½ Waffle House on South Sterling Street was the scene of one such fracas recently.
A restaurant was posted at about 2:15 a.m. on March 8 by Mimi Anderson. About a week later, the video had been viewed more than 311,000 times.
The video shows a woman in the restaurant yelling at an employee. She tries to climb over the Waffle House counter and throws various items at an employee. At one point, a trash can was thrown at the woman, the video shows.
People are also reading…
Alvin Ward is a tattoo artist in Newton who lives in Burke County. He painted a recent disturbance at the Â鶹´«Ã½ Waffle House.Â
The employee who was the target of the woman’s ire can be heard in the video refusing to fight.
It’s unclear from the video what the disturbance was about.
Ward, 34, a Burke County resident and tattoo artist in Newton, said he saw the video the next morning.
“I had several people send it to me because people know my love of Waffle House,†Ward said.
Ward said he did a series of paintings of Waffle House last year. On his Facebook page, the series is titled “A study in waffles and coffee.â€
Ward said his love of Waffle House grew from eating there when he was going to concerts and while hashing out events of the night when he worked at Downtown Sports Bar in Morganton, he said. He and his girlfriend used to eat at Waffle House on Sundays as well.
“My first thought was, ‘I have to paint this,’†Ward said. “That was just like, if I don’t paint this, all the people that know me are gonna look at me and go, ‘Why didn’t you paint this? You should have painted this. You have to do this.’â€
The 11x14 acrylic painting on canvas was done within 48 hours. His painting depicts the part of the video that shows the woman trying to climb across the counter, with her friend trying to pull her off it.
“It’s just the anarchy of the thing, I think,†Ward said. “It’s just the ludicrous-y of it. It’s kind of the absurdity of it, really, like, just ‘OK, yeah, this is what we do in polite society.’â€
Ward shared the painting online and made 50 prints to sell. He has sold about half of them, he said.
Ward said anyone who wants a print can send him a message on Facebook or ask him if they see him around town.
No one has been charged in the Â鶹´«Ã½ Waffle House disturbance.
