Fall's Unexpected Fast Food Trend Is Half-Naked People Falling Through Ceilings

There’s no need to imagine what it’s like to casually sit down in the morning at your favorite breakfast haunt, readying your order of a big-ass breakfast plate of hash browns, eggs, and meat, only to see the ceiling crash down before you, leaving a half-naked man standing in the rubble of broken tiles. That’s because you can watch as it actually happened.

That was last week, when an Alabama man fell through the ceiling of a Waffle House. He’d apparently taken off his pants, climbed through the ceiling, then fallen into the restaurant dining room. (Due to the damage caused to the restaurant, he’s now wanted by local law enforcement.)

Search for fast food news as often as we do at MUNCHIES, and bizarre trends quickly make themselves known. Most recently, it’s that people keep falling through the ceilings of fast food restaurants. Burger joints, sandwich shops, the aforementioned Southern stalwart: all blighted—in just the past two weeks—by unwanted visitors busting in through the ceiling.

Just four days ago, a Michigan man was arrested on disorderly conduct charges after falling through the roof of a Subway. After causing a disturbance at a nearby brewery, the Petoskey News reported, the man entered the fast food chain through the back door, then apparently clambered into the drop ceiling. Though the man was still in the ceiling when officers arrived, they soon found him dangling, with one leg broken through the panels.

The week before, a woman fell through the ceiling of a Cook Out restaurant in Tennessee—twice, actually, as she fell through and then climbed back up. This story is notable in that the woman was entirely naked from the waist down.

The phenomenon isn’t without precedent: In 2015, a burglar broke through the ceiling of a Florida hibachi grill; in 2016, video shows another thief falling down into a Popeye’s; in 2017, one more still, but this time into a 7-Eleven. In September, a California woman fell through the ceiling of the Mexican restaurant Sabroso.

Beyond drop ceilings being ugly as hell, they’ve provided a niche for burglars, who, by and large, have really made a habit of attempting to elude law enforcement by hiding in ceilings, or hiding in ceilings in order to rob businesses after close.

While the recent spike doesn’t immediately appear to be associated with attempted burglaries, it’s highly likely that, as with the Subway assailant, the other two incidents were the result of questionable decisions made while intoxicated.

Though the restaurants now have to clean up the messes, it could probably be worse. In July, an Albany man awoke to a six-foot-long boa constrictor; the pet of an upstairs neighbor, the snake had fallen through the ceiling and into bed with him.