A message from the past. It's funny they talked about a coffehouse craze. 1963 never heard of Starbucks.
Friday, Jul. 26, 1963
Better Batter, Lotto Butter
FOOD & DRINK
First there was the passion for pizzas, then the craze for coffeehouses. Now the country is flipping over flapjacks. Dotted across the land are some 300 specialized pancake palaces, of which 150 have risen, without benefit of leavening, in the past two or three years. Mostly chain-operated, the pancake shops are attractive, glittering clean, well designed, usually are located in suburban areas, where they get maximum family traffic. They offer the once-humble griddle cake, glorified and garnished in up to 37 astonishing varieties (e.g., crepe suzette, blintze, Swedish roll-up, royal Hawaiian). Fast growing Pancake Kitchens, Inc. this week opened its tenth "Aunt Jemima's Kitchen" at Bethpage, Long Island, plans to have 36 shops operating in the Eastern U.S. by 1967. International House, which has 63 shops across the country, is opening new Pancake Houses at a clip of one almost every week.
The advantage of the pancake is that it can be eaten at any hour of the day, and children love it. Pancakes are great for late-evening snacks, and the Saturday night rush is barely over before the Sunday breakfast invasion begins. Sunday mornings are all family trade, when mothers treat themselves to a big breakfast they don't have to cook. One astute chain operator studied possible locations in Yonkers, N.Y., finally built opposite a Roman Catholic church, from which starving worshipers "descend like locusts" after morning Mass.
The pancake was invented by primitive man, has dozens of national variants from tortillas to crepes, but it took the American genius for mass production and specialization to make the low-cost, high-profit pancake a paying proposition. The pancake men work as often with slide rules and time charts as they do with bowl and griddle, know their customers' tastes and habits with awe some accuracy. One chain has so automated pancake production that cooks set meters which measure out the precise amount of batter required for cakes of different diameters. The head cook periodically whips out a ruler, checks that the cakes are the right size. Explained one chain executive: "Why, if our 41-inch cakes were five inches across instead, we'd lose $1,000 a month in profits."
The cake makers flesh out their doughy lines with ice cream (often served on waffles), eggs, chicken, hamburgers, all accompanied by unlimited quantities of coffee. All this is enhanced by the loganberry-purple prose of the menu. Sample: "Persian Pancakes, delicate egg batter crepes rolled and filled with strawberries and peaches. Garnished with smooth rich whipped cream. As exotic as a visit to the Pearl of the Orient."
It speaks volumes (of batter) that there are now over 1300 IHOPs in the USA. Waffle Houses are fairly numerous, as well. BUT I believe people go there for their excellent omelettes and hash browns -- the best seller (see link).
http://www.flakmag.com/misc/wafflehouse.html
