Photos by Glissette Santana.

It’s a Wednesday night in Miami’s Wynwood Arts District, and the concrete walls of a former warehouse are thumping to the sound of hip-hop beats.

People line the hall, waiting for admission. But this isn’t the latest trendy nightclub. It’s the loft-style headquarters of Live Ninja, a video software startup, and the crowd isn’t part of a rope line. They are Miami’s up-and-coming tech and creative entrepreneurs, ready for networking with a side of waffles— tonight topped with bacon, chocolate and whipped cream.

Almost two years after the first Waffle Wednesday, a breakfast social that serves networking alongside gourmet waffles, LiveNinja is expanding the gatherings to the after-work crowd with Waffles After Work, a nod to those who can’t make the morning event, which occurs almost every week.

Waffles After Work takes place the last Wednesday of every month, and like Waffle Wednesday, is sponsored by Knight Foundation as part of its strategy of investing in Miami’s emerging entrepreneurs and innovators to help build community.

“There’s a lot more energy at night than there is in the morning,” said Danielle Ungermann, director of community at LiveNinja. “It’s different than most morning networking events where you’re stumbling in hoping that they’ll provide breakfast and you can tuck yourself to the side until the show starts.”

The events also feature pitches from community projects and startups. Last week, Waffles After Work featured startups Jarly, which delivers boxes of baked goods from local bakers to your door, and IdeaMe, a crowdfunding platform that recently expanded into the U.S. market with Knight support.

Waffle Wednesdays have been successful, Ungermann said, and LiveNinja was seeking ways to reach even more people with the event. The Waffles After Work crowd attracts about two to three times more people than the morning event, jumping to around 100 attendees in the evening from 35 to 60 in the morning.

“We have enough people coming through every week that the relationships [between regular attendees] are already set in place,” Ungermann said. “It’s just making room for [the networking] to actually happen.”

Thanks to the new sponsorship from Knight Foundation, Waffles After Work is improving its marketing and purchasing new supplies, including more waffle makers, to keep up with the growing demand of networkers.

The addition of the evening event has helped bring in other startups, including winery Casa Rovigatti and J. Wakefield Brewing, which co-sponsored last week’s event. 

“The great thing about Waffles After Work is that it includes all types of startups,” Ungermann said.

The casual environment also makes it less daunting for attendees like Arizona native Suzi Grantham to network in a new city.

“Miami is the place for the next business cluster ecosystem,” said Grantham, director of business development at Black Dog Venture Partners, who has been in Miami for a few months. “We’re always looking for innovative, disruptive companies to join us, and an event like this helps.”

Ari Greenwald, an independent associate who works to protect businesses from identity theft at Legal Shield, is a familiar face when it comes to both of LiveNinja’s events. He tries to come as often as he can to build his network; he even has a photo album on Facebook dedicated to it.

“I say I come every week to try and grow my business and spread awareness about how much good [my company is] doing in the community,” Greenwald said. “But, mostly, I come for the free food and cafecitos and the people.”

Glissette Santana is an editorial intern at Knight Foundation. Email her at [email protected] and follow her on Twitter @glissettetweets.