Sam Donnell flips on the Waffle Iron in Lawrence

When a Kansas City chef like Joe Shirley creates one of his Uberdine pop-up restaurants, it’s a special culinary event that is held for only one or two nights at unexpected locations.

Sam Donnell, 26, is producing his first pop-up restaurant in Lawrence, the Waffle Iron, starting tomorrow, and he’s planning on a much longer run. The Waffle Iron, located in the Decade Coffee & Espresso shop at 920 Delaware, on Lawrence’s east side, will be operating three mornings a week for the next three months.

“It’s longer than most pop-up restaurants,” Donnell says. But we operate on country time in Lawrence.”

Donnell is more of an entrepreneur than a trained chef (he was the cook at the Global Cafe in Lawrence for 18 months), but he’s passionate about waffles.

“In 2012, I was farming in Hawaii,” Donnell says, “on a CSA-oriented farm, growing fruits and vegetables. We rotated the job of cooking for the rest of the workers, but it became the default job for whoever was really good at it.”

Sam Donnell became that person — cooking for 8-10 people — and his life changed the day he discovered a waffle iron.

“I had eaten waffles before,” Donnell says, “but they were Eggo frozen waffles or waffles made with Bisquick or those hotel breakfast-bar waffles. When I taught myself to make waffles, I started messing around with the batter, using different kinds of flour and trying out different techniques.”

Diners visiting the Waffle Iron pop-up — every Friday, Saturday and Sunday from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., for the next three months, anyway — will see Sam Donnell doing a one-man show: “I’ll be the cook and take the orders at the counter,” Donnell says. The barista for the coffeehouse will make the coffee and, possibly, help me take orders.”

The Decade coffeehouse is a small space, so Donnell isn’t worried about getting swamped with orders at one time. Donnell will be serving only waffles — buttermilk, yeast-leavened or gluten-free — and says the creativity comes from the variety of toppings he plans to offer.

“I’ll have coconut cream  ‘dulce de coco’, ginger meringue,” Donnell says, “jasmine whipped cream, lavender honey brulee, Alaea salted butter, and brown sugar butter syrup with candied bacon, just to name a few of the toppings I’ll have.”

Donnell isn’t taking reservations, but he will accept credit cards.

Donnell says the Waffle Iron isn’t necessarily the precursor to owning his own restaurant: “I’m not sure I even want to own a restaurant,” Donnell says.