Eating at Pancake Pantry or How I Learned to Love Pancakes:

I wasn’t a big fan of pancakes before I visited Pancake Pantry. From the plain-Jane pancakes in the college dining hall to the publicly-glorified pancakes at LA’s Griddle Café’, no tasty little flapjack had ever shaken me out of my pancake-apathy stupor. Until Pancake Pantry. Eating at Pancake Pantry CHANGES you. It transforms your perception of breakfast and how food can awaken your senses and broaden your awareness. These pancake meals unapologetically ignite your day. No, it’s not a hyperbole at all to say that eating at Pancake Pantry is a sensual reconnection with nature. For instance, how many of us can attest that we’ve held a cloud on our tongue? I can! A happy little cloud of pancake perfection.

I had the Caribbean buttermilk pancakes. A tantalizing lattice of coconut flakes and powdered sugar topped these pretty babies. A generous helping of creamy banana slices and crunchy pecans completed the pancakes’ tasty accessories. The pancakes themselves glowed a golden medium brown and offered a subtly, allusively crisp exterior and a tender, fluffy interior. They virtually floated on my tongue, so light and airy they were. They tasted divine, with undertones of vanilla and overtones of toasty butter. The pancakes’ natural delicate flavor and moist lightness merged extremely well with the strewn pecans, powdered sugar, and bananas. The dish really did taste fun and tropical.

I applied whipped butter and warm maple syrup to my pancakes. The syrup was bold and flavorful, neither too runny nor too gummy. The butter was unnecessary because the pancakes were THAT good. Delicious farm-fresh eggs beaming bright orange yolks, (not the drab pale yellow ones I loathe) and a slab of fried Tennessee ham also supplemented my pancakes. Though I will always be partial to Spanish cured him, I enjoyed the Pancake Pantry country ham. It had a big and complex salty succulence that danced a fierce hoedown in my mouth. Big sweet gulps of fresh-squeezed OJ with suspended pulp washed down my enormous bites of food, saving hippo2 from choking out of overzealous gluttony.

Nashville citizens repeatedly vote Pancake Pantry as having the best breakfast in Nashville. Vanderbilt students are some of the luckiest people alive (at least for the hours of 7am-4pm). Hence, If you go during normal breakfast/brunch hours, you should probably be prepared to wait about 1 hour for a table. But it’s, oh, so worth it.

I respect the reviewer below, but I think he must have just been to the Pantry on an “off day.” I too have been to Pantry on an “off day,” once, and it might (just maybe) give one that impression. However, normally…99 percent of the time…this is not only my favorite place in Nashville, but probably my favorite place in the woooooorld! I try to go there once a week (in fact, I just went today). My favorites are the wild blueberry pancakes (very popular, for good reason), the sweet potato pancakes, and the blintzes. The omelets are also fantastic, and the bacon, so crispy, and the…I could go on interminably. My only complaint is that I wish it stayed open longer (closes at 3:00).

An old restaurant on 21st Street where it is one of the few places to eat breakfast in Nashville, but honestly the food is not anything to brag about. I like Cracker Barell better!