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While this week’s Last Supper is dedicated to the new Southeast Portland pancake purveyor, Slappy Cakes, I’d like to think it’s a larger meditation on dining gimmicks in particular. If you haven’t read this week’s column, or if you’ve never been to Slappy Cakes, the gimmick they employ is giving patrons the opportunity to make their own flapjacks on inset tabletop griddles.

While I’m generally dubious of such contrivances, I’ll be the first to admit DIY pancakes are a winner. By far the best times I’ve had at Slappy Cakes were spent with friends making pancake doodles on the hot griddle. It’s damn entertaining. It’s even better when you add a full bar and some decent cocktails (try the “Green,” a tart tomatillo-based bloody Mary).

Take away the pancakes? Well… While I believe there is a huge amount of potential for Slappy Cakes to succeed in non-pancake brunch and lunch options, they’re not there yet. The menu looks tasty, but the execution is flagging.

So this is an instance where gimmick saves an establishment—a rare occurrence. Often, gimmicks can have the opposite effect. I’m thinking of one instance where the gimmick completely failed for me.

Questions: Where do you stand on gimmickry in dining? Also, I called Slappy Cakes a “theme restaurant.” The theme being… Um… Quirky DIY pancake establishment? I think it may have been incorrect to lump Slappy Cakes in with places like Casa Bonita in Denver, Colorado—a restaurant notorious for its shitty food and amazing kitsch cliff diving grotto interior.

So, was it bad form to link Slappy Cakes with the restaurant of Cartman’s dreams? (Yes, it’s a real place. I went there many times as a kid.)

Let me have it, Blogtownies! I can take it. Then I’ll go to Slappy Cakes for a pancake binge to make myself feel better… If they’re still willing to serve me.

9 replies on “This Week’s <i>Mercury</i> Food Section”

  1. I was more pissed that you referred to Casa Bonita’s food as “totally inedible.” NOTHING tastes bad (when you’re 6 to 11) while watching dreamboat teens you pray will one day ask you to senior prom jump off a faux cliff/waterfall into a pool in perfect swandive fashion.

    Not to mention that NOTHING tastes better coming up when being scared shitless in the haunted pirate’s cavern by a random eel fish barracuda thingie than a fluffy Casa Bonita sopapilla.

    If you remember how molten hot oil cheese and chips and overcooked carne asada lay on your SIX YEAR OLD PALATE to this day, then truly you are a SNOB.

    GOOD DAY, SIR!

  2. Any food critic that name checks Casa Bonita is definitely worth his MSG. When I think of that place, there is always a niggling doubt that I was really there–that it wasn’t all just a childhood dream.

    And don’t feel bad. I don’t think shitty food is a pre-requisite for “theme restaurant” status. It’s just a common “feature.”

  3. Ahhh…Slappy Cakes was great fun…I think I had a better time than my daughter (although the grapefruit mimosa was a poor decision). My one complaint about it was there was an insane number of customers who look at you like you have three heads when you’re kids are screaming happily because they get to make pancakes on the table…I guess it wasn’t the romantic outing they were hoping for? And FWIW, the pumpkin pancakes were great

  4. @amazonfemme

    It’s clear that I’ve become so jaded in my career as a high-minded food-critic for this upstanding publication that I have completely forgotten the magic of being a child.

    But you’ve changed all that! Your comment shook me from my golden tower of foie gras and puff pastry! You have pulled me from the miasma of lavender foams and elk tartar to remind me of what it’s like to eat as a child eats! The joy! The unbridled gluttony! The unchecked regurgitation!

    I thank you. From the bottom of my pyloric sphincter, I thank you!

    Now, if you’ll excuse me. I’m going to Chuck E. Cheese to eat pizza and smear grease on the whack-a-mole mallets.

  6. According to their menu, syrup is a $2 upsell.

    I have an idea for a car wash where you pay them and then they give you a bucket and sponge make you wash your own car. The water to rinse off your car, naturally, is extra.

  7. @The Guilty Carnivore

    There’s plenty of the cheap stuff in several flavors at the table. The $2 upsell is for the good shit. You know, the organic authentic REAL maple syrup. I think that makes sense. But it sucks to be reminded the other syrup is likely high fructose.

  8. I had a friend who was very skeptical of real maple syrup. Did a head to head tasting before making maple-oatmeal pies over the Thanksgiving holiday. The difference was shocking and he bought a jug the next day. Yeah, $2 vs $8, but totally worth it.

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