Texans Look to Whataburger’s App for Power Updates

Fast food restaurants are useful for a plethora of reasons. They offer quick and often cheap food for an efficient bite, a place to use the restroom on a road trip, and a low-key place to unwind when away from home. Now, Texans are finding a super important feature in their hometown burger chain. 

San Antonio-based burger chain Whataburger is inadvertently helping people in the Houston area determine where the power is on and where electricity is still out due to Hurricane Beryl, which knocked out power for over 2.2 million people on July 8. 

Whataburger restaurants are typically open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, so a closed restaurant is a pretty sure indication of a power outage. Locals can use the restaurant’s app to track which of Houston’s 127 Whataburger restaurants are back open, indicated by an orange W in the app, instead of a gray W. Open Whataburger restaurants provide sustenance, as well as electric outlets and air conditioning while an estimated half a million Houstonians are still without power during a heatwave.  

Typically following a weather emergency, residents expect their electric company to provide a map and information about where power has been restored. But CenterPoint Energy, which offers power to nearly 7 million residents in the greater Houston area, has provided no such resource, leaving Houstonians to their own devices when seeking power.   

“Well there’s a use for our app we didn’t think of! We hope you and everyone else are okay!” Whatburger shared on X on July 8, when user @BBQBryan shared the hack. 

“The fact that this really is our most accurate power outage map. Perhaps @Whataburger should be in charge of infrastructure,” shared @carlissc on July 9.

Houston-based publicist Reyne Hirsch experienced intermittent power outages at home the night of the storm, though her neighbors down the block are still without power, thanks to fallen trees pulling down power lines. She had no idea that Whataburger even had an app until she saw how friends on social media were using it to navigate the effects of the natural disaster. 

“I used the app to see what parts of the city are still struggling and areas to avoid,” Hirsch says. “There are so many traffic lights out on main roads in town. People traveling at high speeds don’t realize the lights are out and blow right through them. Several times this week I’ve had near misses with people not paying attention.” This past Friday, wanting to unwind from a long week and get out of her house, Hirsch used the app to check the power situation in a neighborhood adjacent to her own. 

“I wanted to catch a movie for a little R&R after a stressful week,” Hirsch says. “I knew there was a Whataburger close by, so I thought I’d check and see if it was open. It was, and sure enough, so was the movie theater [nearby].” She compares Texans’ infatuation with Whataburger to Californian’s passion for In-N-Out. 

Whataburger isn’t the only chain restaurant to prove a secondary purpose during weather emergencies. 

The Waffle House Weather Index has long been used as an unofficial way to measure a storm’s severity. Waffle House restaurants are open 24 hours and never close, except due to extreme weather. Waffle House also prides itself on emergency management plans and uses a tiered system to indicate how temporarily closed restaurants are operating. Interactive maps show that a green Waffle House is offering a full menu and has full power, a yellow Waffle House is low on food and may have limited power, and a red Waffle House is closed due to severe damage. Currently, dozens of Waffle House restaurants are open in the Houston area.