Stevens Creek vs Great America: A tale of two IHOPs

This morning Dylan and I took advantage of the all-you-can-eat promotion at International House of Pancakes. In January we went twice to the one on Stevens Creek (on the Santa Clara-Cupertino border); today we went to the one on Great America (in Santa Clara). With the exception of one serving today (which was room temperature), both IHOPs serve delicious buttermilk pancakes. The similarities end there.

Round 1 of the all-you-can-eat pancakes at IHOP  on Stevens Creek (Santa Clara)

At the Great America IHOP today, each round of pancakes (the first round is a stack of five, each subsequent is a round of two) took between 15 and 20 minutes from request, which is inexcusable. So, for us it took nearly an hour and a half to eat breakfast. We never got our glasses of water refilled.

At Stevens Creek, we had an excellent experience both times. There was a bug in one of our glasses, but we didn't complain because the staff was so damn nice--Dylan I ended up sharing a glass. During the last visit, the manager even went from table to table to ask how we were doing. We never had to wait more than 10 minutes for any round--each of was a sure-fire hot, fresh, fluffy stack. Bravo!