OUR BEGINNINGS

Where did it all start? Adelaide. We wanted a friendly place, somewhere you could relax over a game of chess or read a magazine. We ‘built the dream’ out of a burnt-out shell of a deli in Gilbert Place and opened The Pancake Kitchen on June 21, 1965. It was a rendezvous, a cosy corner in the centre of the city that would be a home away from home.

Since falling in love with pancakes on a drive from New York to Miami one day, we dreamed of opening a pancake restaurant in our home-town, Melbourne. Here, at Market Lane, we built The Pancake Parlour in 1969. We wanted to capture the character of the city we love and its people with three lovely ingredients.

Lovely food

We only ever serve food in our restaurants that we’d serve at home. House-made. The key ingredient? Freshness. We don’t even have microwaves. We began with no menu, and basically only served pancakes with strawberries or maple syrup. We asked one question – ‘how’d you like your pancakes?’, and the menu evolved.

Lovely people

We are particularly proud of our wait staff. We have a bloody great time working. It is exciting. It is alive. The best part about it all is that we socialise afterwards. Some of us have even married each other. We have great success stories from team members who’ve become senior managers.

Lovely experience

The philosophy of fun and spirit is what has remained consistent and strong with us. If you haven’t left The Pancake Parlour with a belly of laughs (and pancakes), your day was wasted. We aim to bring the experience to as many Melburnians as we can (we had a mobile party machine once). We now have 12 restaurants around Melbourne, and we’ll continue to create a happy place for our customers for as long as the ‘Parlour spirit’ lives on.

- Roger, Helen, Allen and Simon