Lo-Lo’s Chicken and Waffles continues dining legacy for White family

By Tom Blodgett
Mail |
Twitter: @sp_blodgett

Larry White may have been destined to work as a restaurateur. The oldest grandchild of Elizabeth White, proprietor of Phoenix soul-food landmark Mrs. White’s Golden Rule Café, he grew up with the restaurant as his playground.

“I picked up on a lot of skills that I didn’t even realize I was learning at the time, repetition, just seeing it every single day,” he said. “It actually just came natural.”

That does not mean it was White’s dream to follow his grandmother and father’s footsteps in the restaurant, which was established in 1964.

“The food business was the last thing I wanted to do,” he said. “Growing up, watching my family, my father being so tired, and the clothes get a distinctive smell from staying over a stove and oven all day. That just wasn’t the life I wanted for myself.

“Trust me, I tried A through W trying to find something that was going to be perfect for me. And that ‘W’ just stuck. Once I got to that ‘W’ for ‘Waffle,’ I was like, ‘Well, I guess this is my life.’”

Those attempts outside the food business and support from family inside it led him to create Lo-Lo’s Chicken and Waffles, which has grown over 25 years to become a popular local chain with restaurants in Phoenix, Scottsdale, Gilbert and at Sky Harbor Airport, as well as franchises in Las Vegas and the Dallas suburb of Grapevine, Texas.

White, whose nickname is Lo-Lo, had his own record label and frequently traveled to Los Angeles for recording sessions, and after late nights at the studio, the crew often would hit Roscoe’s House of Chicken ‘N Waffles.

Back in Phoenix, there was no Roscoe’s to go to and the people recording missed it.

“After hearing that so many times, I went home and started making chicken and waffles at my house,” White said. “So I would invite guys back to my house for chicken and waffles. In the beginning, it started with four people and four turned into eight, eight turned 16, 16 (into) 32. Before you know it, I got over 64 people at my house trying to get my chicken and waffles.”

He shut down the house operation and opened a weekend restaurant in 1997. His grandmother let him use Mrs. White’s Golden Rule Café, which was closed on the weekends.

But it outgrew that, too, and he opened his own Phoenix restaurant in 2002. He expanded to Scottsdale in 2009 and changed locations in that city in 2014. Gilbert came in 2015. He also started franchising out of state that year, though the family took back over the Las Vegas location.

Elizabeth White is 99 and still comes out to her restaurant occasionally, as does Larry Sr., though Larry Jr.’s sister, Kianna White, now runs the day-to-day operations at the Golden Rule Café. But the lessons Elizabeth taught still are the operational principles for the café and at Lo-Lo’s.

“She (Elizabeth) is still preaching the same thing, you know, the golden rule, doing unto others as you, like others to do unto you,” Larry Jr. said. “She preached very heavily on standards, treating people right. Don’t take any shortcuts. Cook for people how you would cook for your family at home in a clean environment. Organize. Consistency. Consistency is key. Those are just simple, simple rules that can help you in no matter what type of business that you’re in.”

Kimberlee McCrary, the interim manager at the Gilbert location, said she noticed those things as an outsider looking in, and it attracted her from her previous job at a large American bar and grill chain to jump to Lo-Lo’s.

“Actually, I was a customer, and I loved the food,” she said. “I loved that every time my family and I came in, everybody was happy and there wasn’t a vibe where that’s not my job or that’s not my table. Everybody was very attentive all the time. It didn’t matter if it was the host or the servers. … You know, I’ve been in the restaurant industry for 10 years now, and that’s just somewhere where I want to be.”

McCrary said her enthusiasm for the brand has not waned since she started working at the restaurant.

“What I experienced as a guest looking in didn’t change,” she said. “Now that I’m here, I love the vibe, the music is always great, our team members are great. Nothing changed.”

That is important to White, who said he is still trying rebuild staffing and hours after the pandemic cut into operations.

“It’s been a struggle just trying to find good people to want to come in and do the right thing, especially with integrity,” he said. “Do the right thing when nobody’s watching. … We’re only as good as our people.”

McCrary also uses the word “integrity,” but applies it to the scratch cooking, something White insists upon.

“Now that I work here, one thing I really admire and appreciate is the integrity in the business,” McCrary said. “Like almost every restaurant I’ve been to, there’s that ‘Chef Mike,’ where everything’s cooked in the microwave, and we don’t have a microwave in this entire building. Everything is made from scratch, a scratch kitchen, and I absolutely love that. I didn’t know that when I was a guest here, but now that I work here, I do. And I feel like it brings a lot of integrity to the business.”

That is important to White and his family, who believe food is an important connector for people.

“It’s just fresh food made from scratch, and it’s made the way that we would prepare it for our children and for our family, for my grandmother if she was coming over,” he said. “Great food is there if people want to eat it. We’re always willing to accommodate.”

Tom Blodgett
Senior News Editor | Gilbert
@sp_blodgett

tblodgett@iniusa.org

Meet Tom
Tom Blodgett joined Independent Newsmedia, Inc., USA, in 2022, when the company acquired Community Impact Newspaper's Phoenix-area properties. Raised in Arizona, he has spent more than 35 years in journalism in the state.

Community: He has served as an instructional professional in the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication since 2005, and is editorial adviser to The State Press, the university's independent student media outlet. He also is director of operations for an 18U girls fastpitch softball team from Gilbert.

Education: Arizona State University with a BS in Journalism. 

Random Fact: He lived in Belgium during his freshman year of high school.  

Hobbies: Tweeting enthusiastically about ASU softball (season-ticket holder) and grumpily about other local sports (pessimistic fan).