Ethan Crispo says he wasn’t expecting good things to happen, when he realized he’d walked into a Birmingham Waffle House where only one employee was on duty. But he came away with a renewed faith in humanity.

Crispo said he was on his way home Saturday night, Nov. 2, after helping with a friend’s birthday party. He decided he wanted a waffle, so he pulled up to Waffle House No. 1151 on U.S. 280 in the Meadowbrook area just after midnight. He entered, took a seat and soon noticed clues that things weren’t right.

Clue No. 1: There was only one employee left “to fend off the incoming crowd of hungry, heavily imbibed customers.” This was a guy whose name tag identified him as Ben, and to Crispo’s eye he was “awash in bewilderment” about how to confront the challenge at hand.

“I’ve just sat down at my table and it’s becoming clear I’ll be going home with an empty stomach,” Crispo wrote in an e-mail account of the moment.

But then: “From the blue, a man from the bar stands up. Asks Ben for an apron, and begins to work behind the counter. It was a transition so smooth I initially assumed it was a staff member returning to their shift,” Crispo wrote. “It wasn’t. It was a kind stranger. A man who answered the call. Bussed tables, did dishes, stacked plates.”

Reached by phone for more detail, Crispo said that he got the full picture when Ben came over to take his order.

“The first thing I said to Ben was, ‘Hey, man, before we begin, I’ve just got two questions for you.’ He said, ‘Sure.’ And I said, ‘One, where’s your help?’ And he says, ‘They’re gone.’ And then the next thing was, ‘Who’s that guy? Does he work here?’ ‘No.’ ‘Does he work at any Waffle House?’ ‘Nope.’”

Crispo’s photos show a man in a blue shirt, working behind the counter as if it’s no big deal. Crispo didn’t get his name, but suspects he was a regular visitor to the restaurant. “He just saw this other person in a bad spot and just jumped in,” he said.

Responding to an inquiry from AL.com, Waffle House Director of PR and External Affairs Pat Warner said it appeared there’d been a little miscommunication over the duty roster that night. Some workers who’d been scheduled to work the first half of the shift left as planned, but nobody arrived to cover the second half. That created “a little gap,” Warner said.

He said that security camera footage did show that the mystery man and a couple other guests had washed dishes and bussed tables, while the lone associate handled the orders and the food prep.

“We really appreciate their efforts … though we do prefer our associates to be behind the counter,” Warner said. “The key to our concept is, we’re there to serve you, not the other way around.”

Ben and the mystery man worked “feverishly” to take care of business, Crispo said. Over the course of the next hour, two more customers stepped up. Crispo’s photos show one of them to be a woman dressed for an evening out.

A unidentified customer pitches in at a Birmingham-area Waffle House on the night of Nov. 2-3 after a scheduling glitch left the restaurant shorthanded. (Courtesy of Ethan Crispo)

“She’s in heels and a tight dress, she’d been to an event,” Crispo said. “And she’s walking around behind the counter, and I could tell she certainly didn’t come from food service … It was almost comical, here’s this pretty woman in heels and a dress … just trying to help, and the next thing you know she’s stacking cups and running orders and bussing tables.”

“It was the most fascinating thing,” Crispo said by phone. “It was just one of the most wild instances of really, really cool people just coming together.”

The customers played along, Crispo said, and maybe that was the most bizarre thing about it. But when you want a waffle, you want a waffle. The situation was ongoing when he left, he said.

Warner said the situation reminded him of an incident a few years ago in Atlanta, when an ice storm caused some stranded drivers to take refuge in a Waffle House. The same traffic chaos prevented workers from getting there, raising the possibility it might have to close. So customers helped out.

“That’s the great thing we have with our customers, the sense of community,” Warner said.

He added that it appeared the mystery man in particular “did a great job” and might be welcome to join the team during the upcoming holiday season. “If he’s looking for a side hustle, I hope he comes in and fills out an application,” he said.

For Crispo the bottom line is that instead of throwing in the dishtowel, the mystery man in the blue shirt and the other helpers “made a difference to many people that night. Certainly [their actions] made an impact on me.”

“Humanity isn’t just good,” he said. “It’s great.”