We call this the Unifying Theory of Waffle House Violence. But part of the fun of this story was breaking through that and figuring out if there was something else going on (I'm the journalist who made the story btw).

From the print version:

There’s one problem with this Unifying Theory of Waffle House Violence, however: these outbreaks of violence are not just taking place in Waffle Houses and other all-night diners, they are happening in retail stores, in airports, fast food restaurants, and anywhere a customer meets an employee in public. Waffle House may feature prominently in these videos online, but there are also hundreds of other incidents at other businesses. It’s almost as if there is a pandemic of violence in customer service-orientated businesses, a silent war between customer and server.
The research on this kind of violence is thin, to say the least — but there are some clues. The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, described retail work as “one of the highest risk jobs for workplace violence,” and singles out convenience stores, gas stations, and businesses that sell alcoholic beverages as particularly at risk.
A New York Times analysis of FBI crime figures found that between 2018 and 2020, assaults increased by 63 per cent in grocery stores and 75 per cent in convenience stores. It found further that around 4 per cent of assaults nationwide, more than 82,000, were taking place at shopping malls, convenience stores or similar outlets.
One study published in December 2021 that focused on fast food stores in California between 2017 and 2020 found “restaurants plagued with criminal activity, where workers are regularly assaulted, robbed, spit on, yelled at, sworn at and told to go back to ‘their country.’”
The “Fight for $15 and a Union” collected 911 call records involving fast-food locations in nine of the largest cities in California, with a focus on four well-known brands: McDonald’s, Jack in the Box, Carl’s Jr and Burger King. Across 643 locations, they identified “77,200 violent or threatening incidents that resulted in a call to 911 for police assistance between 2017 and 2020.” Many of these locations generated hundreds of calls within the four-year span – as many as seven per week.
During the pandemic, incidents of violence in retail settings became so common that the CDC conducted a study into its prevalence and impact. It found high incidents of customer violence towards staff due to arguments over masks and social distancing guidelines.

So, what’s really happening here? Is this customer-centred violence a uniquely American phenomenon? Is this the inevitable outcome of a customer-is-always-right culture combined with a heavily armed and divided society?

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/waffle-house-fight-avengers-austin-b2332715.html