A pancake crawl? Your reaction is either that’s wild or I love that idea and how can I join next time? I invited some friends (started with 11 people and ended with four) on a pancake crawl in honor of National Pancake Month and National Pancake Day (today - February 25th). We tried four spots in total and ranked the pancakes on a few different criteria. Keep reading to found out the winner.

Itinerary

Our goal was to visit five spots on the Eastside of Atlanta. We ended up trying four spots (couldn’t make it to 8 Arm) with the day going something like this…

1.Ria’s Bluebird - 8:45 am - 10:00 am

Drive 1.5 miles to Superica at Krog Street Market

2.Superica - 10:10 am - 11:10 am

Walk 0.5 miles to Bread & Butterfly

3.Bread & Butterfly - 11:30 am - 12:30 pm

Walk 1.0 miles to Ponce City Market and take a Pizza Jean’s break at Root Baking Co.

4.Pancake Social - 2:00 pm - 3:00 pm

Fall into a food coma

The Pancake Contenders

Rating Criteria

To make it a bit more exciting, I created a highly scientific (lol) set of criteria for picking the best pancake. Looking back now I should have added another category for Presentation & Pancake Taste (without syrup or butter), but what’s done is done. In addition to picking our favorite, we evaluated the pancakes on the criteria outlined below. With the exception of the last question, everything was on a rating scale of 1 - 5.

Fork Test

How easily can you cut through the pancake? Do you need a knife, indicating a tough pancake, or is it super fluffy and easy to cut with a fork?

Butter Spreadability

Is the butter hard as a rock or spreadable #af?

Syrup Taste

How did the syrup taste on its own? Did you like it or not?

Overall Pancake Taste

On a scale of wow to blah, how did your taste buds react when eating everything together?

What pancake would you want to eat for the rest of your life?

We started with 11 people and ended with four, so for the final rating I’ve only used the results of the six people that attended Ria’s, Superica and Bread & Butterfly and excluded Pancake Social from the rankings.

rules

Rules were fairly simple…

One standard buttermilk / regular pancake for every two people
- By the third spot this turned into one pancake for every three people and by the last one it was one pancake for four people.
Toppings had to be ordered on the side and added only after applying the rating criteria
- This was only relevant for Ria’s Bluebird & Pancake Social.
Everyone was encouraged to order black coffee or drinks without sugar, but this rule was the first to go
Savory and other sides were allowed as long as everyone tried the pancakes first

And the winner is…

Bread & Butterfly!

Out of the six people who attended the first three stops, we all unanimously voted for Bread & Butterfly as the best overall pancake! It also beat out the rest when it came to the four rating criteria: Fork Test, Syrup Taste, Butter Spreadability & Overall Taste.

I honestly wasn’t surprised. As you can see in the first picture below, we had to get the pancake to go (which is why it’s cut in half), but even to-go it was better than the rest. Talk about passing the fork test…it held up to both plastic and metal forks. The best part of this pancake were the crispy edges. It’s thick, fluffy and light all at the same time. This was my favorite pancake before the crawl and still is.

Read more about Bread & Butterfly on my brunch guide.

second place…

No one is in more shock than I am, but Ria’s Bluebird and Superica tied for second place when summing up the results of the four criteria. But when it came to overall taste, Ria’s Bluebird beat out Superica by six points. So second place really belongs to…

Ria’s Bluebird!

I hadn’t been to Ria’s Bluebird since 2017, so I honestly didn’t remember how the pancakes tasted. Ria’s is known for their buttermilk pancakes with caramelized bananas but to keep it fair we ordered the caramelized bananas and other toppings on the side. Ria’s reminded me of something I could make at home with a pre-made pancake mix, but lighter and a level up. They didn’t do so well on “fork-ability” or butter spreadability but after combining the butter and syrup, it made for a delicious bite!

What really took it to the next level were the caramelized bananas. Don’t worry this wasn’t factored into the rating, but if you visit Ria’s this topping is a must. It looks really overwhelming on the pancake so I personally would order it as a side.

Third Place…

Superica!

I had really high expectations for Superica. I loved Little Rey’s (Superica’s sister restaurant) take on Superica’s hotcakes - a mini version with this really luscious buttermilk syrup. But it was nothing like that. Superica was the only pancake (hotcake) on the crawl that I hadn’t tried yet (this was also the case for the other seven people with me). It was by far the prettiest pancake and had the best butter, but when it came to the pancake itself (without syrup or butter), 75% of us felt like it tasted dry and honestly cardboard like. I read in advance that the pancake would have crispy edges, but mine certainly did not!

Here’s where it gets interesting! While six of us were complaining how underwhelming it was, two people managed to devour their pancake and only tell us after they were done that they loved it! So we’re not sure if the rest of us got a bad batch or if the other two (one of them being my husband) have really awful taste (haha). The only other difference (and probably the main culprit) is that they drenched their pancake in syrup while the rest of us played the dipping game.

So…moral of the story, I may need to go back to give it another try but that won’t be for a while!

my thoughts…

The group results were exactly in line with mine. If I factor in Pancake Social, I say it’s tied with Superica. You are better off trying one of the specialty pancakes if you go to Pancake Social. If we had more time I would have loved to add the following spots to the taste test:

At the end of the day, it just really boils down to which ones are you willing to come back to, and for all of us it was Bread & Butterfly! Do you have strong thoughts on Atlanta pancakes? Tell me where I need to go in the comments section below.