Last year during certain Sunday mornings, a taste of San Francisco hype culture started regularly appearing among the manzanita and needlegrass near the peak of Mount Tamalpais: people waiting in line after seeing something online. They hiked nearly 2 miles in pursuit of pancakes and queued on the trail for $13 plates. Nobody was more surprised by their idling than Alyssa Jorgensen. 

The chair of the Pancake Breakfast Committee arrived at the West Point Inn for a volunteer shift in October to find a horde of people snaking around the historic hotel perched 1,781 feet above the nearby ocean. Social media posts from the time showed hikers marching like ants up Old Stage Road to take a bite and then post a pic of the latest Bay Area experiential trend.

Jorgensen told SFGATE she was stunned to see how the crowd had appeared 90 minutes before volunteers even started serving breakfast at 9 a.m. The kitchen tried to keep up, rapidly whisking dozens of gallons of just-add-water pancake batter. 

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The $13 pancake breakfast for adults at the West Point Inn.

Looking toward San Francisco from the Mount Tamalpais summit, above the West Point Inn.

The West Point Inn has hosted its Pancake Breakfast Fundraiser once a month from May to October for decades to support the 122-year-old inn. Traditionally, they’d welcome anywhere between 500 and 800 people a month, except on Mother’s Day, when they’d tally 1,000 pancake breakfasts served. 

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