IHOP Takeaway. A Breakfast Convenience. Does Everything Fine. The best part of IHOP is the 7.5 / 10 coffee. The rest of the breakfast is convenient but expensive, coming in at least $11 for enough food. Too much butter masks whatever flavor lies underneath. The comparison breakfast so you can triangulate my tastes to yours. 5 / 10 Standard Breakfast. Pancakes are solid, but I can make them better at home, and they've gotten more expensive.
Service is quick. Super kid and family-friendly as every kid gets a placement to color on and crayons. Parking is always available in big, dedicated lots. You might have to wait a bit for a table at peak times.
IHOP Experience Summary
Man, the first thing I noticed when I sat down at IHOP was that this place got expensive. I don't remember when or why it got this expensive, but a five-stack of pancakes costs $10.99, and a kid's meal costs $7.99.
That's not the IHOP I grew up with.
At that point, I realized you really only come to IHOP for the convenience of not cooking at home. The Standard Breakfast here serves as my comparison 5 / 10. Eggs, hashbrowns, and toast cost about $10. IHOP uses wayyyy too much butter, to the point that you can even taste the eggs. I can get better food for a lower price at the Olivette Diner.
Even First Watch is now very similar in price, $11.99, for much better food.
The pancakes at IHOP are a very good 5. They're good, but they're not good, you know what I mean?
They're better than most people can make out of a box, but I can make better pancakes from scratch in about 15 minutes at home.
So, if I'm going to IHOP, it's basically for the convenience of not having to cook my own pancakes. To that end, the service is excellent and friendly. They get you in and out with an assembly-line efficiency. However, it can still get crowded and backed up on the weekends during peak brunch times. We've tried to go around 10 a.m. on Sundays only to be greeted with 30+ minute waits.
The Food At IHOP
Everything at IHOP is a 5 / 10.
Expect the coffee.
The pancakes are, you know, a 5 / 10. They used to be cheaper but feel far too expensive now for the value. They have a solid thickness but with sweetness and chewiness. They taste like they always have; the ingredients must just cost more. At $10.99 for pancakes, it seems a bit much.
My Standard Breakfast is hash browns, eggs, and toast. It's a 5 / 10.
My main sticking point with the food is that there's too much butter on everything. The eggs aren't really eggs; they are more like butter with some egg filling. And the toast is a little bit with butter and the hash browns are cooked in butter.
The butter has butter on it.
It's just butter, butter, butter, butter, butter.
On the positive side, the coffee at IHOP is significantly better than most of the other coffees I've had recently. It's better than the Olivette Diner's and the Original Pancake House's coffee.
I think First Watch probably has better coffee, but IHOP is really good, and I'd need to do a side-by-side comparison to rank them accurately.
I have no complaints about the coffee. They give you a cup as soon as you get there, and they have free refills.
Not sure if they provide to-go cups.
The kids' meals are also expensive: $7.99 for a kids' combo. The same combo costs $5.69 at the Olivette Diner. The kids get eggs, pancakes, and a piece of bacon or sausage. The kids eat the stuff up. I think the slightly sweet pancakes are the reason. They add syrup, whipped cream, and even chocolate chips and devour them.
The kids' meals are also fun because they come all ready and decked out for kids in fun shapes and patterns. IHOP also gives every kid a crayon set that comes with the placemat.
It was just over $30 for the three of us. I think they forgot to charge me for the coffee, so that it would have been more with that.
IHOP Atmosphere And Miscellaneous
IHOP is the post-modern ideal of what a diner should be. It's as if you took everything to like about a New Jersey diner, like the booths and 24-hour open times, and then put fake plastic on them all.
First Watch is the most immediate comparison to IHOP in terms of being a national chain atmosphere. But whereas First Watch embraces an upscale, hippie crunchiness, IHOP feels more working class and barebones.
You can wait in the morning. There have been times we've gone to this IHOP on a weekend morning, and you're waiting about half an hour if you want to go. We don't really go there all that often, but on the rare occasion we've driven past it, too, and there's a line out the door.
The service has been super friendly, and fast the last several times we've gone to IHOP. They are good at getting you in and out quickly.
Parking At IHOP
Parking is super easy at most IHOP locations. They usually have a dedicated parking area.
IHOP Receipt
