WHEN I was a resident in eastern Flushing from 1993-2007, Northern Boulevard and 155th Street at the east end of Roosevelt Avenue was something of a fast food mecca, as there was a McDonald’s on Roosevelt, a taco place on Northern Boulevard and 154th (with offerings somewhat stronger than the mild Taco Bell) and this, one of four International House of Pancakes in New York City. IHOP was founded in 1958 in Los Angeles (a year after I was founded). There are over 1100 such franchisees in the US, and 1800 counting Canada, Middle East, South Asia and Southeast Asia. Though Waffle House is somewhat more famed, none have arrived in NYC as yet, so for fast food chain breakfast, IHOP it is around here.
This is a somewhat older model IHOP, as no blue-roofed A-Frames have been built since 1979. The acronym IHOP was first used in 1973, along with a cartoon kangaroo who has since been retired. The less said about their mid-2010s idea to market hamburgers with pancakes for buns, the better.
I have only been in this IHOP once, and it was a sad occasion since I broke up with a girlfriend here. The deed wasn’t done in the IHOP proper, but the seeds were sown. All’s well that ends well, we’re still best friends. When I moved to Little Neck in 2007, I spotted the last, or one of the last, Friendly’s in NYC. That has disappered, but IHOP rolls along.
Check out the ForgottenBook, take a look at the gift shop. As always, “comment…as you see fit.” I earn a small payment when you click on any ad on the site.
12/9/25
15 comments
We had lunch at one in Suffolk near the Smith Haven Mall in March 2020 on the last day NY restaurants were open before being shut down because of This Disease Thing. We hadn’t been planning to go out but figured it would be the last chance for a while.
That iHop closed a few years ago but two new ones have opened in the area.
Directly across Northern Boulevard is the Murray Hill Plaza shopping center, where Roosevelt Avenue ends. For some time, many, many years ago, it was the temporary resting place of the Kingsland Mansion, as it waited for its current home on 37th Avenue in Flushing to be prepared. I recall it, sitting on a bit of a hill, way in the back of the property hoisted up on steel beams, waiting for its trip.
At the very entrance to the center is a branch of Flagstar Bank, in a modern neo-colonial style. When it was constructed, it was an “Aunt Jemima’s Pancake House”, long before the IHOP opened across the street. It seems the penchant for flapjacks has long been fulfilled here.
I’m well acquainted with that Northern Blvd IHOP (I lived nearby 1972-78). I have a question for you: IHOP has recently been promoting it’s $6 Meal Deal (as a remedy for inflation) Do you know if that Flushing IHOP is able to offer the same price in your very over-priced region? BTW: When IHOP set up shop at the then new Ellsworth Loop shopping mall in Queen Creek, AZ in 2009 (?) I realized that this part of AZ had finally arrived & San Tan Valley & Queen Creek had achieved “outer borough” status.
Dunno, I haven’t been in there since 1994
Here’s another apparently overpriced region: https://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/news/people-fleeing-arizona-for-other-states-study-says-40627566/
The property & income taxes are low. However, if you live in a region that is served by a California refinery, your gasoline/Diesel prices are higher than elsewhere. If you’re fortunate enough to live in a place that is served by SRP, your electricity costs are more reasonable than elsewhere beccause SRP invested in a nuclear generating plant long ago.. Right now the weather is great with daytime temperatures in the 70s so, to paraphrase, “Winter time & the living is easy”. Life is good in AZ & certainly much better than in neighboring CA & certainly much better than it is the poorly governed NY. Prepare for the worst when you new so called mayor takes office on New Year’s Day. Good luck to you, Chief; you’re gonna needit.
*Very* interesting about the distinction between electricity costs, depending on CA refinery v. SRP nuclear as the source. I suspect I would have expected that such differences would not be permitted within the same state — in the pursuit of “cost fairness” for consumers in all regions — or that somehow those higher and lower costs would be “blended” across everyone’s bills. But the mention of “nukes” also brings to mind my shock when I had first seen my mother’s low, low, low electricity bill, in S. Carolina, where everyone runs their A/C and ceiling fans 24×7; there, too, consumers benefit from that (relatively) inexpensive power source. Interesting indeed.
The first and last time I was in one was in Orlando,FL
in 1978 and it was gross.For one thing the high pitched
ceiling was festooned with dirt.I guess being up so high
its kind of diificult to clean,no?
Hi Kevin
Interesting article as always.
I grew up in your current stomping ground of Little Neck.
Another of the few IHOPs in NYC was on Northern Boulevard in LN, approximately opposite the current Dunkin’ Donuts, which has been on that site since the early ’80s or so.
I grew up in GN but went to LN all the time to visit my relatives and we often went to that IHOP and to Scobee.
Years ago I went to The Royal Canadian Pancake House on Hudson Street south of Canal. They were enormous: the size of manhole covers. I couldn’t eat it all, brought the leftovers home on the subway, with the smell of maple syrup permeating the car. Ate bits of it over the next few weeks. Anyone else remember the chain, now long out of business here?
Great article about the Royal Canadian Pancake House here: https://www.eater.com/2015/1/26/7860903/amanda-cohen-royal-canadian-pancake-house
Across the street in the Murray Hill Shopping center had been Service Merchandise. It was a showroom for their catalog which had electronics to jewelry. When your order was fulfilled, you would go to the middle of the store where there was a large conveyor coming from the 2nd floor warehouse. Afterwards you could stop at the neighboring McDonalds for a fast meal.
While wandering through downtown Los Angeles not long ago, I had a craving for blueberry pancakes. Little did I know that an unremarkable, overly sweet stack and a cup of IHOP coffee would soon set me back 20 bucks. (On the plus side, that downtown location is the fanciest I’ve ever seen)
I brought my now wife (then just friend) who was visiting with her brother and friend from Germany to this very same IHOP during our first face-to-face meeting and they were impressed at the time. The last time we went to an IHOP was almost 3 years ago upon a visit to New York to the one in the Bronx on Allerton Ave and found it to be the opposite. Maybe it was the plastic cutlery that they gave us (probably a COVID measure at the time), or also maybe not used to have everything be so sweet, but it wasn’t up to our former standards.