Hooray! It’s National Pancake Day!

You may not know, understand or, heck you may not even care, about the reason for National Pancake Day! But it’s not just IHOPs attempt at battering up business. National Pancake Day, also known as Shrove Tuesday or Fat Tuesday, is observed in most English speaking countries and is a tradition that is linked to Easter. Typically foods like sugar, fat, flour and eggs are considered part of a restricted diet that a lot of people adhere to during Lent. So before all of the fasting why not gorge yourself with pancakes and syrup? Don’t mind if I do!

While our family does not observe the season of Lent…we decided to head to our local IHOP to eat breakfast for dinner (always fun) and help the breakfast chain raise money for charity.


As you can probably guess the place was absolutely packed! Surprisingly, we only waited 10 minutes for a table. During our wait Gabe was very aware of a group of High School students standing outside – specifically, a couple of girls. Trying to be coy, he knocked on the glass paned window a few times, but when the girls turned around to find the cause of the noise he looked away shyly and grinned. As the next group of patrons was called to their table a space opened up on the benches across from us and the group of teenagers stepped inside to continue their wait. Let the flirting begin! Gabe spent the next 5 minutes or so showing off for the ladies…how was he showing off you ask? Duh! By practicing his beat boxing skills! Oh my! I’m sure there was a puddle of spit on the floor where we were sitting by the time we were called back to our table. But Gabe felt bigger than life – and the young girls were very sweet to show him a little bit of attention.


As we walked toward our table we realized the IHOP staff members were dressed in Orange Lorax t-shirts. This was a pleasant surprise! The Lorax is the new Dr. Suess inspired movie that’s soon to release – and of course the kids are dying to see it! IHOP was even giving away bookmarks with seeds attached as part of their Plant Three Million Trees campaign (we’ll be planting those soon so stay tuned for pics). The kids were very well behaved and the service was fantastic. I’ll admit I was a bit leery considering how busy the place was but we’ll definitely be going back next year!


In case you missed this year’s free hotcake craze…this National Pancake Day schedule should cover you for the next couple of years!

2013 — 12 February 2014 — 4 March 2015 — 17 February 2016 — 9 February 2017 — 28 February 2018 — 13 February 2019 — 5 March 2020 — 25 February 2021 — 16 February 2022 — 1 March 2023 — 21 February 2024 — 13 February 2025 — 4 March 2026 — 17 February

2027 — 9 February 2028 — 29 February 2029 — 13 February 2030 — 5 March 2031 — 25 February 2032 — 10 February 2033 — 1 March 2034 — 21 February 2035 — 6 February 2036 — 26 February 2037 — 17 February 2038 — 9 March 2039 — 22 February 2040 — 14 February

2041 — 5 March 2042 — 18 February 2043 — 10 February 2044 — 1 March 2045 — 21 February 2046 — 6 February 2047 — 26 February 2048 — 18 February 2049 — 2 March 2050 — 22 February