I Heart Pancakes

Hey folks,

Margo and I don’t eat out often but when we do we usually go out for breakfast.  Special occasions – like Valentines Day – or when we feel like a treat.  The time of day doesn’t matter.  Any pancake house worth its salt will serve all day.  Surprisingly though we’ve been in communities time and time again where you can’t get a decent pancake or waffle to save your life.  Okay yeah, Waffle House and IHOP.  They don’t count.  Cracker Barrel flips a mean pancake but they don’t have waffles. 

Enter Richmond Road in Williamsburg, VA.  Our current digs are right down the road from Colonial Williamsburg and Richmond Road is the main thoroughfare.  On Richmond Road you and your family can enrich yourselves with the finest in colonial history.  Or you can just spend all your vacation money at Ripley’s Believe it or Not, play mini golf at the Pirates Cove Mini Golf, or visit a candy store the size of a Best Buy.  Now that’s vacationing - but I digress.  This is after all a post about the all mighty flapjack.

As I said, we usually can’t find one anywhere, but along Richmond Road there are no less than six – in a three mile stretch.  You have your “Astronomical Pancake House”, “Mama Steve’s”, “Capital Pancake House”.  You get the idea.  We checked with the locals, the RV park owners, and they pointed us to the Astronomical Pancake House – ASTROOOO--NOMICAL!

The first thing you notice is it’s busy.  We were brought to our table and nestled between a family with teens – all with faces buried in their phones – and a family of four.  This included a 2-year-old boy in a booster seat and his 4-year-old big sister.  I’m not exaggerating here – Margo and I could not hear ourselves over the noise this family made.  We looked at each other and non-verbally discussed leaving but decided to stick it out.

After ordering and listening to the ABC song a dozen times our food came.  I do have to say that this made up for the ambiance.  Incredibly good food.  Then the shoe dropped – no really – the shoe actually dropped.  Out of the corner of my eye I saw an incoming size 1 Nike with untied laces.  It landed on our table with LED lights blazing. Thankfully not too close to the plate and we were finished eating anyway.

The mother was quick to apologize profusely and we were polite, pretending to smile and say “that’s okay.”  Those things happen.  I was brought back to the time when one of my girls – a few years old at the time – hurled an apple across a crowded Quincy’s Buffet.  I won’t mention which one but she knows who she is.  

In the end it’s the company across from you and the food that really matter.  Next time though we’re going to insist on a different table.