More people packing is what's needed

Robbie Brown has an article in The New York Times about a recent spate of robberies at a chain of Southern restaurants:

The two men accused of robbing a string of Waffle House restaurants in Georgia and Alabama had a routine. They placed to-go orders, and after the food was cooked, the police say, they pulled out guns and demanded all the store’s cash. Sometimes they ate, sometimes they did not.
“Another day, another Waffle House robbery,” began one article in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, as eighteeen Waffle Houses were robbed this summer.
Throughout the South, it was not so much the three-week crime spree that caught people’s attention. It was the location. Waffle House, a ubiquitous chain of yellow-roofed diners, is as much a fixture of Southern life as the grits, hash browns, and crispy waffles that it serves all day, every day, even on Christmas. In Georgia, where the 1,600-store chain originated, it is hard to find an Interstate exit without the restaurant’s yellow block-letter sign nearby.
In the Atlanta area alone, there are 230 locations, all offering heaping portions, strong coffee and jukeboxes that play songs about Waffle House. And federal emergency officials even use what they call the Waffle House Index to determine how severe natural disasters are in the South. If a local Waffle House is closed, along with Home Depot or Wal-Mart, it indicates a longer recovery process.
But in recent weeks, bad news has kept coming for the restaurant chain.
Even after the two suspects were arrested in August and detained in Shelby County, Alabama, where they are awaiting trial, Waffle House has been linked to one bizarre story after another, raising the question: does Waffle House attract more news than other establishments, or does news receive extra attention when it happens at a Waffle House?
When four elderly men were arrested in northern Georgia this month on charges of planning terrorist attacks in Atlanta and along the East Coast, FBI surveillance tapes revealed where they had met to hatch their plot: a Waffle House. Bloggers and television reporters quickly dubbed them the Waffle House Terrorists.
Last month, when a Florida state representative was ridiculed for proposing that death row inmates be killed by electrocution or firing squad, he said the idea had come from a constituent he met at, you guessed it, a Waffle House.
In Georgia, there have been other less-noted incidents: after nearly seventeen years on the run, a fugitive was caught this month at a Waffle House in Augusta, and a cross-dressing bank robber in Marietta has evaded the police, but was spotted on surveillance video this month eating at a Waffle House.
In Cobb County, where some of the robberies occurred, Sergeant Dana Pierce said the police were paying extra attention to all 24-hour diners, but especially Waffle Houses. It is easy to see why they can become targets for criminals, he said. “They are cash-driven,” he said. “They are near interstate exits. And they are open 24 hours, when people aren’t necessarily in a sober state of mind.”
Waffle House offered a $2,500 reward for information leading to the arrests. A company spokeswoman, Kelly Thrasher, said the chain did not believe its restaurants attracted more crime than other 24-hour national chains. “You can’t escape stereotypes,” Thrasher said. “It’s not that more of these stories happen at Waffle Houses. It’s just getting more attention when it happens at a Waffle House.”
Waffle House is taking steps to present a positive image. In 2008, the company opened a Waffle House Museum at the site of the chain’s first restaurant in Avondale Estates, an Atlanta suburb. It has a letter from a former Georgia governor commending the restaurant on its success, photographs of the chain’s founders and a box where customers can write down and leave their favorite Waffle House stories.
Dora Strother, a pottery instructor in Stone Mountain, Georgia, has been eating at Waffle House with her husband most mornings for years. The location where she goes, for fried eggs and wheat toast, was among those robbed. Does a crime close to home scare her? Sure. But can she stay away from one of her favorite restaurants? “Nah,” she said. “We’ll keep coming to Waffle House. We’re not that worried.”

Rico says you would think the solution would be for the cashier to whip out something (in a caliber starting with 'four') and plug the guys (both young black men; what a surprise)...