Polly’s Pancake Parlour

Everybody loves a stack of fluffy, fresh-made pancakes. And for generations, pancake lovers from across the country and all over the world have come here for some of the finest flapjacks in the universe.

We are in Sugar Hill, New Hampshire, just outside of Franconia, in the White Mountains, and up on a hill you will find the legendary Polly's Pancake Parlor.

Polly's is unlike any other restaurant I have ever been to. It's part dining room, part gift shop, and part museum. The restaurant opened up in 1938, although the family farm dates back much further than that. It was all started by “Sugar” Bill Dexter and his wife, Polly, and these days it's run by her granddaughter, Kathy.

“Polly's is more of an attraction or part of an attraction, as well as a place to get a great meal, a place to spend time with your family. We started in 1938 as a way to highlight the maple sugar products. So you enter in through a gift shop, as that was the original business, and then you enter into the dining room. The kitchen is an open kitchen with griddles right up front. The wait staff make all their own pancakes and waffles for the customers.”

So these are some of the busiest waiters and waitresses I have ever seen in the restaurant business. Your server takes your order and they go straight to the griddle, and then they start making those pancakes.

There are six main flavors of pancake batter available every day. There's plain, buckwheat, gingerbread, whole wheat, cornmeal, and oatmeal buttermilk, plus all your favorite add-ons. There's blueberries, walnuts, coconut, chocolate chips.

If you're gonna drive all the way up here, I think the best way to experience Polly's is to get a Pancake Sampler so you can get three different flavors of pancakes, all on the same plate.

As a New Englander, I think you have to go for the blueberry pancakes. Just start with a nice plain traditional pancake and add those blueberries, and they definitely load them up. You get that nice punch of sweet and tart. So good. Doesn't even need syrup, although it is better with syrup.

Another popular pancake is the gingerbread. I love the gingerbread pancake with some walnuts in there. One of the best smelling pancakes of all time. You got all those warming spices, the ginger, the nutmeg, the cinnamon, and adding some walnuts to it just brings it to the next level.

Gingerbread. Walnuts. Tastes like it's Christmas Day.

One of the main reasons these pancakes are so special is that they stone grind all their own flours here, right on site. So you're talking about the finest and freshest pancake batter you could possibly get.

Here's something you don't see at a lot of breakfast places anymore: cornmeal pancakes. Talk about old school. The cornmeal batter brings a little extra sweetness to the party, and I like to get it with the coconut.

There's something about that combination of the sweet corn with that tropical kind of coconut feel. It's like a combination of cornbread and a piña colada, and somehow the whole thing just works perfectly.

If you want to take your pancake obsession to the next level, order this: Polly's Panwich. So it's basically a breakfast sandwich served between two fluffy pancakes. You have scrambled egg, cheese, and your choice of meat. I like to put the sausage in there.

It's basically a gourmet version of a McDonald's McGriddle, except you have to add your own syrup, and you're gonna want to.

Now, this one is really indulgent. It's a Monte Cristo Wafflewich. You get a nice, thick, fresh-made Belgian waffle stuffed with thick-cut ham, melted Swiss cheese, and the key is on the side. It's served with some homemade maple raspberry syrup.

I gotta go in for that. That is outrageously good. The salty, savory flavor of the ham. That melty cheese. And that sauce. Raspberry is sweet. The maple is even sweeter. It's perfect.

I have been to a million different breakfast restaurants, but this is not your typical breakfast joint. As soon as you sit down, you know you're going to be in for something special, because they hand a maple tray to every table.

The maple tray has all the standards you need. You have half & half, your butter, and you also have their maple syrup. There's some maple sugar you can sprinkle onto your coffee. And my personal favorite, Polly's maple cream.

I like to take some of the maple cream, smear it on my toast. Oh, it's sweet, not too sweet. Great maple flavor and the creaminess. That is how you start at breakfast.

This is basically a bucket list item for any true New Englander, because you haven't experienced a real pancake breakfast until you've had one at Polly's Pancake Parlor.

“It is a very unique spot where you can sit and look out the windows. You can see the Presidential Mountain range and you get some great food also. My grandfather would have been tickled pink. He'd be laughing that he wouldn't believe how busy we are even in the wintertime. My grandmother would be pleased, also. It really has been a wonderful life and it's a gorgeous place.”