Burton is known as Pancake Town USA. Every March since 1951, Burton has been serving pancakes every spring to over 20,000 guests. It became so popular that the Burton-Middlefield Rotary Club decided to officially trademark the town as “Pancake Town USA.” Today the Rotary Club, the Century Village Museum and other groups continue to serve these annual March Sunday pancake breakfasts. Downtown Burton was packed with cars yesterday (and I would imagine every Sunday in March), as everyone parked on the square and on Main Street to enjoy the pancake breakfasts at the Century Village Museum, Red Maple Inn, the fire station and the high school and visit the Burton Log
Cabin. The American Legion’s pancake breakfast is tucked away on a side street across from the entrance to the high school. I went to that one a few years ago and really enjoyed the fried potatoes.
This year the pancake breakfasts at the high school and fire station are on March 3rd, 10th, 17th, 24th and 31st. The American Legion and Century Village Museum will also be hosting theirs on April 7th as well.
This year I decided to try the Burton-Middlefield Rotary Pancake Breakfast because they serve omelets in addition to all you can eat pancakes and sausage. Two of my other friends opted to go to the Fire Station for their all you can eat breakfast featuring regular, blueberry and buckwheat pancakes. I’ll try it next year.
My friends and I decided to meet at 11 on the 24th because we had an event later in Orange that started at 2. I got there shortly before they did. They parked in the post office lot, while I parked down and across the street from the high school lot, which was jam-packed with cars. I drove through the entire lot and not a single spot was free. I had an inkling this would not be a quick breakfast like the last two pancake breakfasts were. We queued up once we walked in and wound our way up the stairs and through the hallways of the school. They had pins for the visitors to mark where they came from. There was a board for Geauga County residents as well as one of Ohio. One pin was from Toledo, while several others were from Pennsylvania.
About forty minutes later we found ourselves at the table to pay, where we specified what we wanted. They took credit cards, but I happily handed over my $12 for the pancakes and sausage with an upgrade of a Western omelet. My friends ordered veggie omelets. Since they are vegetarians I got their sausage patties after we sat down. We were given a print-out indicating our order and a colored cardboard piece with a number (#1 for Western, #2 for ham and cheese, and #3 for veggie – peppers, onion, mushrooms and cheese) and handed the print-out to the person at the door to the cafeteria serving area. We wound our way through that area, grabbing a tray and silverware and collecting our pancakes and sausage patties, choice of milk (regular or chocolate) and orange juice. They then assigned us a table and whisked away our trays before we even had a chance to sit down. The omelets were quickly brought to our tables, and we handed them the colored cardboard.
The omelets were huge and really delicious. They were served with little cups of salsa, but I preferred mine just as it was. The pancakes were fluffy and had a great taste to them. The sausage was well-cooked. The coffee was in big thermoses on the table as well as cream and sugar. Real maple syrup was in squeeze bottles on the table. The tables also came equipped with wooden sticks painted in yellow and red for more “cakes” and “sausage” and green and brown for more coffee. The yellow and red sticks got a lot of use. They gladly kept serving more pancakes and sausage until we couldn’t eat any more. The woman overseeing our table whisked my plate full of leftovers away (I had stacked my plates together) and brought it back in a to-go box. I had half an omelet and four sausage patties left. I hadn’t asked for any more pancakes or sausage, but did ask for more coffee and butter as we sat down since our table was running low. Once we were finished they cleaned our plates and detritus away. Once someone left the table they were immediately there wiping the spots down and putting a placemat down for the next group of diners. When we left at noon the line had died down considerably. However, as we learned from one of our fellow
diners if you go a little later you may find they have run out of something – in their case a few years ago pancakes. They serve from 8:00 am – 1:30 pm.
We checked out the little craft fair in the gymnasium before leaving. I bought some kolachky, and my friends bought some jam. My leftovers made a great dinner that night.
Contact info:
Burton-Middlefield Rotary Pancakes & Omelets Breakfast
Berkshire High School
14510 N Cheshire Street
Burton, OH 44021