By The Way...

Tuesday, February 20, 2007
11:36:00 AM EST
Hearing The District Sleeps Tonight -- Postal Service
Today is National Pancake Day, or so says the International House of Pancakes, who, as the accepted governing body of all things pancake-ish, is apparently qualified to make a judgment on these matters. If you go to an IHOP today, you'll get a free short stack of pancakes, although, as the site says: "All we ask is that you consider making a donation to support local children’s hospitals through Children’s Miracle Network, or other local charities." If you don't make a donation, you'll still get pancakes, but they won't smile when they serve them to you, freeloader.

I won't be availing myself of the free pancakes myself, but I like ideas like this, in which a company gives away its product as a way to attempt to steer the income they would have gotten to a charity. I wonder if the donations equal what the company would make in income selling the pancakes; I suspect not, but you never know. I do imagine that IHOP deducts the cost of running the event as a charitable thing anyway. Still an interesting idea.

Going to get free pancakes today?


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This entry has 4 comments: (Add your own)

• #4 Comment from lurkynat 
  2/22/07 12:42 PM | Permalink

  Wow! I never heard of this!
  Nice way to help that group too!Awesome! thanks John!
  nat
• #3 Comment from mavarin 
  2/22/07 2:09 AM | Permalink

  My free pancakes were made by a priest, the Senior Warden and other volunteers in the church kitchen.  Photographic proof:
  
  http://outmavarin.blogspot.com/2007/02/in-red.html
• #2 Comment from monponsett 
  2/21/07 11:59 AM | Permalink

  I've lived in both France and the USA, and my mother was one of a kind in the kitchen. Keep that in mind when weighing my idea.
  
  Americans have the lowest tastes in food on the planet. The worse it is, the more popular it is... but things that are a problem to others are Opportunities to me.
  
  I do OK money-wise, and don't need any heart attack get-rich scheme... but if I did, I'd make Fried Batter franchises.
  
  Itd be sort of like a french fry, sort of like a chicken nugget, much unlike yet similar to the onion ring... just no filling. All batter. Crunchy, filling, and no nutritional value whatsoever.
  
  I suppose I'd have to spend some time in the Kitchen- maybe 2-5 hours- to make something different than a pancake, not really a donut...yet not quite fried dough. If it worked with ketchup, all the better.
  
  If anyone wants the idea, go ahead. Just one condition... somewhere on the menu, there has to be a Stacey Shake.
  
  
• #1 Comment from dpoem 
  2/20/07 11:48 AM | Permalink

  Sadly, I have no idea where the nearest IHOP is around here.  But, in Milwaukee, if word gets out that someone's giving away something free to eat, it usually ends in a mad rush of gluttony.  
  
  But, that's why it's Fat Tuesday!  
  
  -Dan
  http://journals.aol.com/dpoem/TheWisdomofaDistractedMind/