Sunday, January 25, 2009

International House of Pancakes

“International House of Pancakes,” or IHOP, was founded in 1958 by Al and Jerry Lapin. The first restaurant opened on July 7, 1958, in Toluca Lake area of Los Angeles, California.


IHOP borrowed many ideas from Howard Johnson’s Restaurant and Horne’s Restaurant, in terms of place-product-packaging (Jakle, 1996). For an initial investment of $15,000, franchises could buy into a restaurant system symbolized by one of the most readily identifiable building prototypes ever devised for America’s roadsides, a large A-frame structure with turquoise painted roof.


It is a super-sized a-frame structure with a brick chimney, diamond pane windows and the colorized version of a wood shake roof of a typical tract home. The spectacular orange-white-turquoise color scheme is borrowed from Howard Johnson’s. The a-frame buildings were used until 1979 when the last one in that style was built (www.ihop.com).








5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hey, Brett, Great Blog! Love the theme...cannot wait to see what's next! You know what gets me? The fact that right out of the gate, with just a couple dozen hits so far, there are already viewers from Thailand, Indonesia and South America! You are an international celebrity! :-)

Yer pal Bruce

Brett Lucas said...

Thanks Bruce, I appreciate your comments.

Jennie Brown said...

Greg and I were bemoaning the fact that IHOPs don't look like IHOPs anymore. We, of course, are old enough to remember the wonderful A-frames and the magical menu of pancakes inside. Yummmm....

Brett Lucas said...

Jennie - I remember as a kid going up to Portland, Oregon from the SF Bay Area, and we usually stopped at the IHOP in Redding, California just off of I-5. Those were the days when you could get strawberry waffles, and still pour a ton of strawberry syrup on top, and then have a stomach ache a half-hour later, and not get in a heap of trouble from mom and dad. Not to mention you could get hot chocolate, another treat that was rare at home.

Jen said...

I love the look of the old IHOPs. We have two within a few miles of us here in MD and one is in the traditional building and one is in a ugly gray building with a hotel right next to it. I love driving by the classic IHOP!