It’s the most wonderful time of the year. National Pancake Day has made its way into our hearts and our stomachs once again.
To celebrate this long-awaited holiday, The Avenue visited three Gainesville breakfast spots to hunt down the best pancake. We rated the following cakes on fluffiness, color, moisture, presentation and, most importantly, taste.
The contenders: Metro Diner, 16th Avenue Diner and Daybreak Pleasant Street.
The contest: the perfect pancake.
These three restaurants represent the different species of breakfast spots in Gainesville: Metro Diner, Gainesville’s beloved, Daybreak Pleasant Street, the hidden gem and 16th Avenue Diner, the classic diner feel.
To keep the rating consistent, plain pancakes were ordered at each location.
Metro Diner
Gainesville staple Metro Diner offers fluffy, golden brown pancakes that barely fit the plate.
While it’s not specific to Gainesville, Metro Diner is a Gainesville staple – a place for students and Gainesville residents to attempt to beat the hungry weekend morning crowds.
Metro Diner’s menu boasts its Metro Pancake, “The 12 inch challenge.” They didn’t lie.
Barely fitting on its plate, this pancake was a deep golden brown and as fluffy as a footlong pancake can be.
A little on the drier side, it pairs perfectly with syrup, butter or anything you like on your pancakes.
The Metro Pancake might not prove that size matters but is definitely a sight for hungry eyes, earning a rating of 7.5/10.
Price: $6.69
Daybreak Pleasant Street
Hidden gem Daybreak Pleasant Street provides melt-in-your mouth pancakes with a side of fruit.
Still widely loved, Daybreak Pleasant Street is a less well-known spot serving modern twists on breakfast classics on a quaint Gainesville street.
An order of Daybreak’s Buttermilk pancakes comes with three cakes stacked aside a small side of fruit.
Definitely earning the most points in fluffiness, these pancakes were delicious and had the perfect amount of moisture without being too dense.
While they were light and fluffy, these cakes had excellent syrup-retention and a buttery, melt-in-your mouth taste, earning them a rate of 9/10.
Price: $8
16th Avenue Diner
Traditional 16th Avenue Diner sells warm, buttery pancakes with a dash of cinnamon.
Offering the traditional diner essentials, 16th Avenue Diner is the place to go for a comfort food breakfast experience that delivers in both taste and quality.
An order of plain pancakes gets you two considerably sized cakes. Thick and fluffy, they surprised with a warm hint of cinnamon, earning them extra points for flavor.
Although not as fluffy as Daybreak cakes, these were still light and airy, while delivering that buttery goodness that we all look for in our pancakes.
Definitely tasting the closest to homemade flapjacks, 16th Avenue Diner’s pancakes earned a 8/10.
Price: $5.99
Each year, National Pancake Day reminds us all what we love most about our favorite definitely-better-than-waffles breakfast. While it’s pretty hard to make a bad pancake, these three restaurants are sure to deliver near-perfect ones.
Contact Chloe Greenberg at cgreenberg@alligator.org. Follow her on Twitter @_chloegreenberg.
