In the entrance window, above the restaurant in Canberra, there's an enlargement of the front page of an old newspaper... the Colonial News... with a headline that calls out loudly:

"Pancake Insult!
Dancer Whips Cook".

This headline (and the old drawing that goes with it, pictured here) are almost the first things you see when you visit The Parlour at Canberra. Also in the window, clunking away with flashing lights, whirring wheels and pulleys, is the last remaining example of a real Pancake Stamping Machine. This unique (and still operational) device was apparently installed after the incident referred to by the above-mentioned newspaper headline... but that's another story.

The newspaper article goes on to tell the following story in descriptive and graphic detail:
Lola Montez, mistress of Kings, the Irish-born dancer whose provocative displays have been known to induce riots, tonight soundly thrashed a hapless Pancake Palace cook after angrily accusing him of serving her an under-weight pancake.

Under the sub-heading of
Disgraceful Acts in Restaurant
the Colonial News reported...

The long-established pancake eating establishment was in an uproar last night after the famous dancer, accompanied as usual by her rag taggle band of besotted gold miners, went on a rampage of vengeance that saw anxious patrons bolting for cover from the flying fists and colourful language. The incident ended in a baton charge by mounted police.

According to shocked witnesses, the untoward sequence of events occured late in the evening when a party of miners, somewhat under the influence of both drink and their spider-dancing accomplice, took it into their heads to teach the staff of the crowded Pancake Palace a resounding lesson for the insult of being served what they declared were under-weight pancakes. Miss Montez, notorious for her mercurial temper, took her horse whip, which accomanies her everywhere, to the pancake cook, soundly thrashing him before being subdued by the combined efforts of several brave male patrons and the police.

"The Pancake Stamping Machine"

A complicated contra-action Stamping Device for the fullfilment of the requirements of the Department of Weights & Measures, Victoria, "that all examples of that confection of flour and water, known as the pancake, be of a certain style and weight, that of four ounces" following an incident involving the dancer and libertine, Lola Montez, and the thrashing of a pancake cook followed by the total destruction of a pancake establishment and the general outraging of the populace, by the gold-mining associates of Miss Montez. A small plaque on the machine on display reads: This gloriously restored machine, the only known example to survive, fully illustrates the dictum of the 19th century engineering genius Louis Eiffel who declared "Less is never, do I make myself clear? Never more.

Philip Barton, who operates the restaurant, first started with The Pancake Parlour in 1965... he's learned over the years the exact way to run the perfect restaurant. The staff are friendly, the atmosphere is relaxed, the chess table is set up ready to go and the food is, naturally, lovely!

Peter Von Czarnecki
restoring the "Pancake
Stamping Machine" before
it was shipped to
The Pancake Parlour
Restaurant in Canberra.
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