The following is an excerpt from the March 12, 2003 edition of The Tulsa Daily Tribune.

Tulsa Waffle House Reeling From Mother's Day Disaster

    As the sun set on Mother's Day 2003 in South Tulsa, Bob Raefelson and his family sift through the smoking wreckage of their business and try to salvage what little is left of Bob's Waffle Hut.  Exhausted from a day of terror and destruction, it is far too soon for the Raefelsons to begin  talk of rebuilding.

    It all started with a simple promotion:  "Mom's Eat Free On Mother's Day" read the sign in front of Bob's Waffle Hut.  "My son-in-law had the idea," owner Bob Raefelson, normally a big, jovial bear of a man recalls.  "Jason Junior had two semesters of junior college after he got his GED, and now he thinks he's Mister Business Expert.  Anyway, he rented one of those trailer signs and put the letters up hisself."

    The sign, still bearing the fateful message "Mom's Eat Free On Mother's Day" is one of the few things left standing amongst the twisted wreckage.  "The sign went up on Wednesday, and we hardly thought anything would come of it," recounts Denada Raefelson, a small, wiry woman, musing between deep drags of her Merit Lights.  "We just thought it was something nice to do.  We didn't even put any ads in the paper, but come six-thirty Sunday morning when I pulled into the parking lot I could tell there was gonna be trouble.  The lot was already full.  As I brought in some supplies, I could see a pack of them out front milling around and peeking in through the glass door.  Half an hour later when Bob finally got there to open up, I thought they would break the door down."

      " 'I'm a mother and I want my free waffles right now' was what that first customer said as she bulled her way in," Denada remembers.  "She was big, probably a little over three hundred pounds, and she was mean and hungry.  She ate four plates of waffles and was already calling out for more by the time Jason Junior finally hauled his ass in.  He had been out drinking the night before with that crowd of no-goods he hangs out with  at the Caravan Cattle Company Country Disco when he should be home helping Jolene with the triplets.  I still curse the day I let him take Jolene out on a date that first time to Hooters.   But he's family now.   Anyway, when he finally got in, the whole place was swarming with dozens and dozens of mothers ... big ones, short ones, all of them mean and hungry for free food.  It wasn't even nine o'clock, and we were already running low on batter."

    "I thought we'd just get a lot of families coming in and they would all eat enough to pay for the mom's food and them some,"  Jason Junior recalls.  His face still bruised and bloodied, Jason Junior grows emotional.  "But it weren't families at all.  Just hundreds of great, big, mean, hungry women. They came from all over.  Not just from Tulsa but from Stroud, Stigler, Wiggly, and even from across the state line in Kansas.  I don't know how they all managed to hear about Bob's Waffle Hut, but they was all lined up at the counters and out into the parking lot when I got there.  I remember one of them did bring her family.  It looked like she and her sister brung five or six little ones, but they didn't buy anything for them kids or even pay one red cent.  They would just pound on the table and call out for more free waffles.  Once in a while they would throw down some scraps from their plates for the kids who was playing on the floor under the table.  It was just plain ugly in there with all those moms.  A lot of them were still wearing bathrobes.  A few looked like they were from deep in the country and hadn't ever even been to a restaurant before.  One was too big to even come into the Waffle Hut.  She made her sons come in and then bring the food back to her in the little trailer they used to carry her around in.

    "I remember things turned bad when Bob had to jump up on the counter to announce that we were out of bacon and were running out of waffles.  He tried to calm them down, but the smell of all that grease and syrup was  like blood in the water to them,"  Jason Junior recalls with terror in his eyes.  "Next thing I know a big nasty one in a walker caught me behind the ear with a ketchup bottle and then I don't remember anything after that."

    "They were like a pack of big, fat, wild hungry animals," Denada recalls.  "They snorted and clawed at us as we kept shoving the last of the waffles out to them.  Then when that gimpy one cold cocked Jason Junior, all hell broke loose.  They charged into the kitchen rooting around for food and more and more new ones kept waddling in through the front door trying get at the free waffles.  Bob and Jolene went into the pack of them to try and drag out Jason Junior, and that left me alone in the kitchen.  One of them was poking around and tipped a pan of grease onto the grill.  I managed to put out that first fire, but I knew we was finished.  With no more food, they started to bust up the furniture and throw chairs through the windows.  I had already called the police, but by the time they arrived there must have been more than three hundred of them out there howling and screaming for free waffles.  When the officers announced that the Waffle Hut was closing and ordered the crowd to disperse, that really set  them off.  They turned over the patrol car and dragged the officers out and beat them up pretty good.  I don't know how I did it, but I managed to pull Bob and Jolene out of the dining room.  Then we hoisted Jason Junior up and over the counter.  By the time we hid in the dumpster out back, we could hear the sirens coming from all over town, but it was too late.  The Waffle Hut was on fire, and those evil mothers was on a tear."

    Police reinforced by National Guardsmen and two SWAT teams managed to repel the mob as it attempted to loot a nearby Krispy Kreme store.  Employing  well-proven crowd control tactics such as the judicious use of tear gas, pepper spray, and seemingly random acts of brutal violence the mob was finally dispersed before any more property was destroyed.

    Now with the sun setting and protected by a cordon of heavily armed Guardsmen, Bob Raefelson can only ponder how a national holiday predicated on the concept of maternal love could leave his dreams and business shattered, the smoldering remains of his restaurant a mute reminder that in Tulsa free food, big women, and Mother's Day don't mix.