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Posted by on Apr 15, 2013 in Blog, Rants and Raves, Restaurant Reviews, Travel | 20 comments

Warning! Do Not Eat at this Restaurant!

 

pancake-house

 

I just finished walking two fucking miles through the mountains of North Carolina only to find the ending point of my destination closed for business.

I did this not just once, but twice.  Once on Saturday, and again a second time on Sunday.

You might ask — at what precise hour of the day were my two excursions?

My first venture ended at 2:20 pm.  My second venture was completed at 1:05 pm.

Question:  What kind of fucking pancake house padlocks its front doors at 1:05!

I’ll tell you precisely what pancake house.  Stick around.  Grab a chair.  Pop some popcorn.  Better yet — make some pancakes!

*     *     *

This is my eleventh straight day in the Great Smoky Mountains of North Carolina.  The food around here has grown tiresome.  So, this past weekend I jaunted from my usual dining choices and opted for something quite simple.  What could be more simple than good old-fashioned Southern-style pancakes?

On Saturday, I hiked down a two-lane highway heading toward a building in the distance that had caught my eye days before.

“PANCAKE HOUSE.”

Giant white letters.  Big as a stadium scoreboard.

Ever since the lasting first memory of that giant sign emblazoned on the sloped Alpine-style roof, I’ve been dreaming about pancakes the same way a junkie fantasizes about getting his next fix.  And finally, on a cloudy Saturday afternoon, I found barely enough free time to make the holy excursion on foot and walk down the road to the reservoir that would temporarily extinguish my craving for cheap calories.

Sometime later, I arrived at the front door only to see a most disappointing sight:

 

restaurant-closed

 

CLOSED. 

Well, fuck me.

Trouble was, the sign wasn’t clear.  It was more confusing than a Bible verse.  From the limited information provided to the public, I was able to deduce that the Pancake House opened at 7:30 (AM, I presume).  The signage also indicated the restaurant was only open Friday through Monday — which is four days out of seven.  Those seemed like odd days of the week for a breakfast joint.  But since this was Saturday, at least I’d arrived on one of the four days when the place was open for business.  Well, at least I’d scratched one number right in the lottery.

I departed hungry and disappointed but vowed to return again the following day.  Note to self:  Arrive earlier than 2:20 pm.

Now, stop.  Time out.  From what you’ve been told so far — what hour of the day would you guess the Pancake Houses closes?  My guess would have been at 2 pm.  Maybe even 1:30 pm.

Sunday comes along and all I’m thinking about in the meantime are the phantom pancakes that I missed out on yesterday.  Hallucinations of hot melted butter mixed with pure maple syrup poured on top of fresh hot North Carolina pancakes seared into my mind.

And so, I made the same walk as on the previous day.  The time was 1:05.  This time, when I arrived at the Pancake House, here’s the vision that greeted me at the front door:

 

restaurant-closed

 

WHAT THE FUCK!

YOU’VE GOT TO BE FUCKING KIDDING ME!!!

I can’t stand it any longer.  I think blood vessels actually ruptured inside my head  All I recall from that car-crash instant was letting out a slew of profanities in the parking lot that lasted until I’d used every conceivable detestable word in every way, shape, and form — and then some.

Fed up with this treatment and furious that I’d wasted two days hiking down a lonely highway to eat some persistently prevaricating pancakes, I banged on the front door.  The glass rattled.

I finally got someone’s attention.  An older woman with beehive hair glanced at me and shouted, “We’re closed!”

“I can see that!” I hollered.  I begged the woman to approach the front door.  She reluctantly but finally obliged my annoyance.  Too bad, I didn’t have a gun.

The beehived lady asked what I wanted.

“I walked all the way over here two straight days, and you’re closed?”

“Yeah, we’re closed up.”

“Well, what time do you close?” I asked

“I don’t know.  It depends.”

“It depends?  Are you serious?  It depends on what?” I demanded.

“We close up after the rush.”

“The rush?  What rush?  Why doesn’t your sign here say exactly what time your business stays open?”

“I’ve got work to do.  We open up tomorrow morning.”

With that, the beehive woman clicked the lock on the door and walked away.  More profanity spewed.  I departed, hungrier and angrier than ever before.

Outraged that a restaurant wouldn’t bother to post its own hours of operation, I returned to my hotel hell-bent on a holy mission.  I went straight to several popular websites with consumer reviews.  I was curious to learn if anyone else had lost in the red-black, open-closed fixed roulette game double-dealt by the Pancake House.  I wasn’t at all surprised to observe in place of complaints about limited hours of operation, instead, I read several customer complaints which were considerably worse.

Check these out.  Read below.  Here are some gems from the actual reviews section posted at Yelp and Yahoo:

Racist eatery.  Recently stopped in for some food around 9:00 am one morning and commented to the waitress I was craving an omelet. When she returned with my water she informed me they did not have the ingredients to prepare one.  I asked if they were out of eggs and she said yes, but it would take about 30 minutes to get everything else.  I told her I could not wait and she said to go to the Waffle House up the street.  First of all, it took more than 10 minutes just to bring water in a place that only had a couple of customers.  Secondly, a place called the Pancake House should always be able to prepare an omelet.  Finally, I never told what kind of omelet I wanted.  You can do the math on this one.  Do not eat here if you are a person of color.

 

If I found myself in Cherokee again I would sooner eat breakfast from the dumpster of another restaurant than have another meal here.  Nothing about this place is good.  The bathrooms are gross, the food even worse and the service worse than everything else.  Even the bacon here is bad!  How do you make bacon gross?  I don’t know but the cooks here have mastered it!

 

After eating at this place for years due to lack of anywhere else to go I have had it!  They used a $50 Visa gift card of mine, said it broke their machine, and then took my $50 cash.  Come to find out when I got home I had a $0 balance on my card because Pancake House took $50 and then my cash also.  This was Dec. 31, 2012, today is Feb 5, 2013, and I still haven’t settled the dispute.  In my mind, that is THEFT!

 

Absolutely the worst food I have ever ate in my life.  How hard can making a pancake be?  It was cold, bland, and rubbery.  Eggs were horrid as well.   Stay away from this place!

 

I will never go back to this nasty place !!!!  I had hair in my food and when I went to the owner about it , he wanted to fight me and threatened to throw me out of the restaurant.  I will report him to the Better Business Bureau.  THIS PLACE SUCKS!

 

This was the worst dining experience I have ever had!  We walked in and stood in the entryway for about 3 minutes before any of the lazy staff even acknowledged our presence, then one lady says, just sit here (motioning to the table in front if the entry door that had silverware piled on it) we asked if we could have a table that was NOT in front of the entrance as she grudgingly told us to just sit wherever and she would deal with it.  The server was awful and you could tell she hated her job and quite possibly her life.  The powdered eggs and instant grits were awful, pancakes came out of a box and when we asked for ketchup she practically threw PACKETS of ketchup at us.  PACKETS?!?  At a sit-down restaurant?!?  For $21 I could have just eaten in the hotel room!  We told the cashier that it was the worst service, food, experience EVER and she looked at us as if shocked by my comment and just shrugged!  AWFUL!  AWFUL!  AWFUL!

 

Hear me now:  I hereby call for an international boycott of the Pancake House in Cherokee, North Carolina.  Mark it down.  The restaurant is located at 352 Paint Town Road, otherwise known as NC State Highway 19.

The moral of this story is this:  Sometimes when you lose, actually you win.  In retrospect, the best thing about my negative experience encountering a closed sign was avoiding a bad meal at a terrible restaurant.  However, my gain may have denied you an even more ballistic story.

Now on Sunday night, I still can’t find anyone in this small town that makes pancakes — besides the evil Pancake House.

What did that sign say again?  What time do those motherfuckers open up tomorrow morning?

20 Comments

  1. What about the Waffle House up the street one of the commenters mentioned? Or maybe the Waffle House dumpster if they are closed too (according to another commenter)?

  2. The curiosity factor of how bad the actual dining experience could be is off the charts. At this point, you almost owe it to yourself and your loyal readership to endure it, if only for the epic, profanity-laden, snark-infused review it is sure to produce.

  3. I’ve got your back, Bro! No more breakfast at the Cherokee Pancake House for me!!!

  4. I will happily boycott this restaurant on the off-chance I’m ever in Cherokee, NC.

    Oh, and there are two places one should NEVER eat at in Tunica: (1) The “Great” Buffet at Sam’s Town. If you had comps and tried to take me there to eat, I’d rip up the comps, take you somewhere else, and pay out of my pocket; and (2) the Tunica Waffle House. I expect very little in terms of food quality or service at a Waffle House, and this place came far beneath my expectations.

  5. Reminds me of best restaurant review I ever read:
    “The food was awful, but fortunately the portions were small”

    • NOLAN REPLIES:

      But what happens when “one free edit” is not enough?

      — ND

  6. I think the moral of the story is to not go to Cherokee NC in the first place.

    • The area is great just this buisness’ model is very bad

  7. You come to NC and don’t ask me where the great pancakes are? A simple email and an extra few hundred mile stroll and I would have treated you the best 18 inch wide griddle cakes in North Cackalacky.

  8. WAIT! You have to go back. HOW bad is the food? Rush? Closes after the rush…of what 15 people? The worst food I ever had was a waterfront buffet in Vancouver, B.C. Knew it was bad when the fish of the day was bla-ta-da fish. 21 hot and 21 cold dishes. 42 inedible dishes…Left hungry.

  9. Now why would you want to fire a flapjack flinger from a floundering flipjoint? Their market will determine if they stay in business. Your mean spirited diatribe trying to hasten that outcome may well be undeserving as Mav has so graciously pointed out.

    • NOLAN REPLIES:

      You guys are probably right. Other than refusing service to Blacks, never being open, not posting hours of operation, and serving terrible food, this place is a real gem.

      — ND

      • knowing your kids, I can see why!

        oh I don’t know your kids,

        but I can “imagine”

  10. I had a bad food experience and a funny one a couple months ago at this joint. Made the mistake of picking this place to eat and the food was below average at best but we were pretty hungry so no time to complain.
    Service was about average.

    The funny part is they have sugarless house syrup and I wanted some with sugar. The waitress says its right here on the table. I say no, its the same thing(sugarfree).
    She says no look we scratched part of the label so you will know…link to picture

    https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/6602511/2012-12-30%2012.59.20.jpg

    HaHa , Me and buddy laughed “yeah we should have know better”

    We both join the boycott.

  11. Nolan,

    I wonder if there is an opportunity for you to make a website: “Shittiest Restaurants in the World”

    In the same way that people slow down to watch car accidents, I wonder how much interest there would be in this…

  12. Mr. Dalla:
    First, my USMC Drill Instructor was able to get his point across without using any profanity. Perhaps you should consider creating a bigger vocabulary.
    Second, I didn’t see a date you were at Cherokee. The “season” is relatively short and you may have been there off season which usually means the schedule is off the table.
    Third us “inbred mountain/Indian people” are an ornery bunch. Sure we’ll cut our nose to spite our face but that’s just the way we roll.
    Fourth, computer type machines do terrible things. Did the Visa person explain the situation and get some type of refund from the restaurant or Visa?
    Fifth, what kind of business have you operated, or have you ever been in the service sector?
    Sixth, yes I am distantly related to these people.
    You have a nice day.

  13. I’m in Cherokee, NC on Christmas day 2015 looking for somewhere to eat. I’m guessing that “The Pancake House” is not going to be open on Christmas even though it falls on one of their normal days they operate. But even if it were, and even though I’m craving some hotcakes, I will not be entering their establishment after reading your boycott blog, as sell as the other horrid reviews. I ate there on a previous visit many years ago, and it was nothing memorable, but there is very few places to eat around here, so I was looking on my tablet this morning for food and there it was. So, I was getting ready to call and then saw this boycott. I didn’t call. 😉

  14. I actually ate here two years ago with my husband and three children. I am black and received great service. I actually want to go back because the Bacon Pancakes were delicious. I can’t speak for everyone’s experience. But my experience was a good one.

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