It’s about time.
With French toast and waffles soaking up the most syrupy cereal attention, the O.G. (Original Griddler) of the breakfast’s holy maple trinity has been inexplicably left out. Yeah, there’s been that one pancake cereal, but since the likes of French Toast Crunch and Waffle Crisp have already done their namesake foodstuff proper geometric justice, Cap’n Crunch’s pan-puffs feel borderline disrespectful—not to mention overeager; who makes a blueberry pancake cereal before classic maple?
Thankfully, IHOP is teasing a new breakfast product that appears to risk it for the disc-shaped syrup biscuit.
Here’s a little taste of something we’re working on. Stay tuned for more. pic.twitter.com/6onHvTDYVh
— IHOP (@IHOP) April 30, 2020
Their only tweet on the product came not long after a supportive retweet of one of many TikTok cereal pancake videos. This recent trend involves a turning a ton of baby batter (note, no hyphen) blips into a bowl’s worth of milk-worthy mini-flapjacks. IHOP’s official box debut gives little more information, except confirmation in the replies that this is real.
However, the brains beyond the genius-level failure of “IHOB” might’ve been well ahead of these bite-sized snippets of innovation. Sources chummier with IHOP than me have confirmed that the chain was exploring the Panflakes concept as early as March—when they released a number of cereal-infused menu items. But pandemics take priority over Panflakes, so the product has been delayed. Interestingly, as the box posted likely isn’t official—if you see the small descriptor text—it’s hard to fully discern what Panflakes will be. Other than IHOP calling it a limited-edition “cereal concept,” the only other evidence is Panflakes’ previously filed trademark application, which strangely describes it as “Pancakes topped with breakfast cereal.”
Will this be the first widely distributed pancake-shaped pancake cereal (perhaps in the same shape as Nilla Cereal)? Will it only be sold at the IHOP corporate gift shop? Or will it be a self-indulgent in-store gimmick like IHOB? There’s only one thing I can conclude for sure: the sooner you see the Panflakes logo as a drizzling fart cloud, the sooner you’ll never be able to unsee it.
Where Online can I order a box of this IHOP PanFlakes cereal? I must have some. Thank you.