For over 40 years, the Pancake Place has been serving Port Macquarie. What's the secret?

A Port Macquarie institution, the Pancake Place has been sitting at a busy intersection  in the centre of Port Macquarie for decades. In 1982, Gloria and Warwick Endacott snapped it up after being charmed by the town on an unplanned visit and decided to take over the business.

So what’s their story? Having grown up in Port Macquarie and knowing the Endacotts for most of my life, I decided to enquire.

Best seat in the house

Late on a Thursday morning I’m welcomed into Pancake Place by genuinely friendly faces that I’ve known since I was young - the twin daughters of Gloria and Warwick, Rebecca and Caroline. It’s before the lunch rush and a pleasant bustle builds slowly.

I order a long black and see Rebecca making the coffee. They use Peak coffee, a local blend. From my vantage by the window, a steady stream of customers pour in and out. Caroline, now the restaurant’s manager, is behind the scenes doing admin.

“I’ve got you the best seat in the house,” Rebecca assures me. She says she’s recently moved back to Port Macquarie to pursue the next chapter of her social work career and is helping out at the restaurant in the meantime.

A charming holiday turned new vocation

Before they made Pancake Place theirs, Gloria was a data processor and Warwick was an accountant. When they passed through Port on a holiday through to Forster in the early 80s while contemplating a career change, the opportunity of the “tiny little business” they saw up for sale was too perfect to resist.

They took the plunge and bought Pancake Place officially in 1982, beginning their new life as east coast restauranteurs.

“Neither of us had food backgrounds,” Warwick tells the Mid North Coaster. “A lot of our resulting success has been due to Gloria’s hard work.

“We just fell in love with Port. Forty odd years later, it’s still a great place to live. It has a perfect climate.”

Tou-can dine at the Pancake Place

In recent years, the reins of the Pancake Place’s management have moved from Gloria and Warwick’s hands to their daughter Caroline’s. She has upgraded and tweaked a few things, including a menu that caters to vegan and gluten-free diets.

However, the old school spirit is still intact in many ways, and there’s clearly something working about it.

“People like a familiar face. They like to know some things don’t change,” Caroline says.

One of those unchanged things? The Pancake Place toucan logo, which has been with the restaurant since Gloria and Warwick bought it.

“At the time tropical decor was popular, and we wanted to evoke a sense of Port Macquarie as a holiday destination. McDonalds had the golden arches, Pancake Place has the toucan,” Warwick said.

“We essentially created the fun family restaurant market in Port Macquarie,” he continues. 

“This was before Pizza Hut, McDonalds… Port needed a space where parents could eat well without having to worry about the kids being entertained.”

As well as the dedicated kids’ menu, the Pancake Place had – until COVID-19 restrictions – a dedicated kids’ play space in a section of the restaurant filled with games, books, toys and a TV playing kids movies.

The kids’ play area has returned in a smaller size since the lifting of pandemic-era restrictions.

The couple has had their fair share of hard times, with a fire next door resulting in the demolition of the building in 1996 – but Gloria and Warwick saw it as an opportunity to modernise and make changes for the better. The redesign saw a pivot from the 80s-style serve-yourself salad bar to table service both indoors and outdoors, more suited to Port’s sunny climate and the tourists wanting to make the most of it.

The pandemic was also difficult as the tourist trade is the restaurant’s bread - or is that pancake batter? - and butter.

Just a “light” lunch

Rebecca brings me the long black, which is strong and bracing, and walks me through the menu. 

“The bacon and potato crepe and the satay chicken crepe are popular, but the Swedish style tasty meatballs crepe is the low key superstar.” 

I opt for the bacon and potato dish in a “light meal” size for $22.90. What comes out smells and looks heavenly. It’s definitely enough to fill one up, especially as every meal comes with a fresh bread roll and a fruit salad.

The care for presentation is as obvious as it is appealing, and has been a priority since the restaurant’s inception. Rest your eyes anywhere in this place and you’ll find a piece of retro-tropical kitsch that somehow just makes sense. 

Deep blue napkins (sadly discontinued by the supplier, Caroline tells me) adorn the tables, macaw and toucan ornaments hang from the ceiling, framed tropical scenes line the walls, stained glass lamps loom overhead that are as old as the restaurant itself.

The staff have a classic look, in all black with branded aprons and holding waiter notepads. It’s a charming touch in an age of QR codes and iPad menus.

Local produce and staff

All of this attention to detail is not just surface level: care is taken to source fresh produce from other local businesses.

The bread rolls are bought fresh daily from Golden Hot Bread in the nearby Ritz Centre, and the Endacotts have been buying fresh fruit and veggies from Ken Little’s, Munster street’s fresh produce vendor, since they bought the restaurant. For meat, they buy from “Marty” at Colonial Quality Meats in the town centre’s Colonial arcade.

As well as supporting other local businesses, the Pancake Place is a well-known employer of locals.

“We’ve had parents and then their children both work here,” Caroline tells me. Indeed, growing up here, I felt like the only one in my group of friends who didn’t work at the Pancake Place at one point (but you could find me at the Blockbuster in Lake Cathie).

Retro indulgences

It seems a crime not to try the dessert menu as well. Caroline and Rebecca both talk up the butter, cinnamon and sugar pancakes as a retro classic so I opt for that for $17.50 with some whipped cream. I’m not disappointed. It’s warm, fluffy and comforting.

They also recommend the blueberry and maple pancakes, the sticky date with caramel sauce, or the “chocolate indulgence”. And for a headier dessert, there’s always the liqueur crepes like the strawberry Cointreau number. 

“It’s all a bit ‘80s retro inspired, lots of nostalgic options,” Rebecca said . An original menu describes the dessert options as “wonderfully wicked”.

The secret to a good pancake (place)

I’m curious about how the restaurant has stood the test of time. What’s Pancake Place’s secret?

“Hard work and luck,” Caroline said.. “Especially Mum and Dad’s.” 

Warwick thinks a big part of their success has been their ability to adapt to customers’ changing tastes.

Five years ago, the restaurant changed their hours of trade from lunch and dinner to the earlier window of breakfast and lunch. 

Why? It’s simple: “Breakfast is the most popular part of the restaurant’s trade.”

The more things change…

Winters are quieter, and the majority of trade comes from tourists. Locals tend to come during the week: Caroline points to a group near me as an example and rattles off their regular orders.

The busiest time is during school holidays. 

Looking across Clarence street to the plaza outside Port Central where it seems there’s been a revolving door of venues for the past few years, it’s heartening to know that some places have withstood the vagaries of the cost of living crisis. 

“Port has a bigger population now, and that means more competition. Pancake Place has always stood up – for generations of people now.”

Perhaps it comes back to Caroline’s point that people love to know some things don’t change. Under her management, the family restaurant looks set to endure.