Lone Reporter Covers Surprisingly Tense Attempt to Build World’s Tallest-Ever Stack of Waffles

How did you spend your Memorial Day? Did you try to tackle a size-related Guinness World Record? Even if you did not, know that a few people did: Snoop Dogg casually concocted the world’s largest gin and juice over the weekend, and — perhaps even more impressively — Spencer McCullough, a 23-year-old Denver entrepreneur, spent his holiday building the tallest-ever stack of waffles in his own backyard. McCullough’s dramatic triumph required 50 pounds of batter, a professional land surveyor, and one extremely low-budget sign taped to the front door explaining where members of the press could observe his attempt:

Indeed, the only reporter who appeared to take McCullough up on his offer — the Denver Post’s Elizabeth Hernandez — live-tweeted the (surprisingly nail-biting) drama on Saturday, as it unfolded in real time. The record is still pending official review by Guinness, but in the end McCullough (and a college friend who flew in from Texas expressly to help with this attempt) reportedly broke the previous record for highest waffle stack by more than half a foot.

It required a full-on waffle assembly line in McCullough’s kitchen, and quickly started to look like Jenga for breakfast:

It was something of a scene: “True hero” Dustin Hoaglin, a land surveyor, gave up his Saturday morning, and McCullough also roped randoms in by offering free breakfast in a Facebook post advertising the event. “Summon the Heroes,” the John Williams song that NBC plays at every Olympics, was streamed as the waffles were stacked in front of a crowd of strangers. Hernandez says that they gasped and shrieked as the waffle stack — which ultimately topped out at over three dozen rows — took shape.

At one point, the stack teetered so much that McCullough’s Texas friend, Steve Garguilo, broke a plate rushing to stabilize the structure:

Per a tape measure and Hoaglin’s laser scanner, the height reached 67 centimeters, beating the current 51-centimeter record. If this sounds monumentally wasteful, have no fear — to qualify as the new world-record holder, McCullough says you must do it sustainably: “Guinness requires that all of the waffles be consumed by humans after the record.” That was maybe the easiest part:

Behold the World’s Tallest-Ever Stack of Waffles