10 Discontinued IHOP Menu Items You'll Never See Again

Is there anything more American than a table full of every breakfast food imaginable? Picture crepes, pancakes, waffles, eggs, hash browns, bacon, sausage, and syrup — so much syrup — all flanked by coffee, juices, and numerous other beverages laid out like a medieval feast. IHOP — the International House of Pancakes — lives and dies, so to speak, by people's desire to feast on all things breakfast. 

As with many fast-casual restaurants, IHOP has had to make some tough choices to stay relevant with the millennial crowd. When other chains with similar business models started to fall by the wayside, the breakfast-focused restaurant fought back against impending decline by introducing a plethora of dishes in the last several years. Unfortunately, even with diehard fans, some items just didn't make the cut to remain on the menu in perpetuity. Here are 10 discontinued IHOP menu items you'll probably never see again.

Pancakes chock-full of nuts and whole grains? Sounds like my healthy meal for the day! IHOP's Harvest Grain N Nut Pancakes featured batter loaded with oats, almonds, and walnuts in what would appear to be a wholesome meal at a place not exactly known for good-for-you items. But in 2022, thanks to poor reviews and poorer sales, IHOP decided to pull these pancakes.

The internet was pretty on board with the decision for the Harvest Grain N Nut Pancakes to meet their maker. Many said the pancakes had a dry off-putting texture. Others cited how truly unhealthy the pancakes were, clocking in at around 800 calories. Users on Reddit claimed the mix was likely expensive and led to loss since nuts can quickly go rancid, rendering the batter inedible. Regardless, there still are plenty of copycat recipes to be found if you'd like to create your own version at home.

Ah, French toast, or pain perdu for those of us who are fancy. Take a stale piece of thick-cut bread, soak it in a custardy mixture of eggs, cinnamon, and dairy, then griddle it until the outside has formed a beautiful golden crust, but the inside is still moist. Serve with syrup and voila! Is there a more decadent meal to start your day? Yes, actually, there is. Take that same bread and stuff it with cheesecake. 

When IHOP unveiled its cheesecake-stuffed French toast, it would seem that a star was born. Folks loved the luscious combination of tart and sweet cheesecake filling in their otherwise traditional breakfast staple. In 2017, the beloved dish was removed though, and then brought back once again during a temporary promotion, before ultimately being removed again — this time permanently — in 2021. Fans weren't happy with this decision and generated petitions, harassed the company on social media, and threatened to boycott the removal. You can, of course, try to make the pancakes yourself, but will it really be the same? Le sigh.

Sometimes, marketing goes too far, and I say that as a marketing manager with a craft chocolate company. There's always a strong desire to celebrate those "pretend" holidays, such as National Dog Day, National Peppermint Bark Day, or National Bathrobe Day. But leaning a little too far into the hype of a made-up celebration can backfire, too. Case in point: IHOP's foray into National Pizza Day, circa February 2019 with its Pancizza, pronounced pan-keet-za. The pancake restaurant partnered with DoorDash and offered this 7-inch pancake served up in a pizza box in select cities: Los Angeles, New York, Dallas, and Chicago.

At-home diners had their choice of three pancake flavors: cloyingly sweet cupcake, classic buttermilk, or a savory bacon and cheddar option. The Pancizza was served up with four of IHOP's classic syrup options. Despite a strong PR push, the stunt fizzled, with diners pointing out that the Pancizza was only a little bigger than the regular pancakes. On top of that, the pancake in a pizza box didn't travel well, and pretty unflattering pictures of the creation emerged.

There are few things as unabashedly American as describing foods as "ultimate" and a "stack." What other country revels in the glorification of true gluttony? All that aside, IHOP definitely played into the biggest breakfast vibes with its Ultimate Waffle Stack. Described as "a show-stopper breakfast sandwich with two eggs, six slices of hickory-smoked bacon, white cheddar, and sweet maple glaze, sandwiched between signature Belgian Waffle triangles infused with savory cheddar," this insanely large menu item clocked in at nearly 1,400 calories when it debuted in 2018, and that was without the side of hash browns.

The overall reviews for the Ultimate Waffle Stack were decently good, with many folks applauding the balance of sweet and salty as a wonderful breakfast treat. However, perhaps it was the incredibly high caloric content, but IHOP ultimately decided to kill the waffle stack in favor of offering the components separately on its menu. So, if you are really craving the dish, you could just order waffles, eggs, bacon, and cheese and make your own.

When it comes to many types of food, there seems to be a real desire for businesses to make things small, handheld, and sandwich-like. They shrunk hamburgers and made sliders. They shrunk hot dogs and made pigs in blankets. You get the idea. It would only make sense that a fast-casual restaurant like IHOP would have tried to cash in on this food trend, right? Enter the Pancake Sliders.

To appeal to the early lunch and brunch crowd, the pancake sliders featured the restaurant's silver dollar pancakes as the "bread" on a slider featuring folded-over scrambled eggs, bacon, turkey sausage, American cheese, and a sweet maple glaze. There was nothing too groundbreaking here, but the idea behind the dish wasn't good enough. Introduced at the same time as the Ultimate Waffle Stack in 2018, IHOP seemed to have been betting big on the sweet and salty combinations. The mass release also included corned beef hash and a southwest scramble, both of which have also been removed from the menu. 

If you've walked the streets of tourist-laden Paris, you're likely familiar with the crepe cart. Deliciously thin, airy, snackable crepes are just the pancake's cousin who studied abroad. Sweet or savory, they're a perfect snacking food to take the edge off of your hunger before lunch or dinner. As the International House of Pancakes, it makes sense that IHOP would have had a few crepe-adjacent items on the menu.

One of the most popular and beloved crepe combinations, apart from the classic ham and cheese, was bananas and Nutella. The juxtaposition of the hazelnut and chocolate spread with the tropical sweetness of bananas all wrapped up in a thin, crisp, buttery crepe? Que magnifique! However, after a menu slim down in 2020, the Banana Nutella crepes disappeared. Social media users lamented the loss, and many of them still hold out hope that they will see the delicious breakfast item return.

I, for one, am grossed out by kids' cereal. The overly bright not-found-in-nature colors, the cloyingly sweet taste, and the fear that I will, inevitably, crash violently once the carbs and sugar leave my system, are all factors that have pushed me toward eggs, grits, and more savory breakfast items. Those who do love breakfast cereals, though, may have opted for a way to celebrate this love with an ode to them in the form of IHOP's Cereal Pancakes.

This menu item featured classic buttermilk pancakes sprinkled with Cinnamon Toast Crunch, Cap'n Crunch's Crunch Berries, or Fruity Lucky Charms. Then, because sugar makes the world go 'round, a cereal milk mousse was added between layers. The whole thing was topped with a sweet and syrupy sauce and whipped cream. Can you feel the diabetes, yet? 

For a kid — like my five-year-old — I can see the appeal these may have had. However, with the limited in-person visits during the pandemic, the Cereal Pancakes were removed from the IHOP lineup. There are plenty of other unexpected ways to upgrade pancakes, though.

In the southern part of the country, red velvet seems to reign supreme when it comes to desserts. The cake, which first made its appearance in the Victorian era, gets its red color from the combination of vinegar and cocoa powder. Traditionally, the frosting is a cream cheese base with sugar added for sweetness, lending to a tangy and tasty bite.

Introduced in 2012, the Red Velvet pancakes featured pancakes colored a distracting red and drizzled with sweet cream cheese. The menu item debuted alongside several others and was slated to only be available for a limited time. However, after proving popular with diners, the pancakes returned on and off the menu several times before finally getting the boot in 2020. 

There are diehard fans out there, and a Change.org petition has been circulating to try and bring back the breakfast option with nearly 1,000 signatures and recent signers. IHOP hasn't responded, but some folks may continue living on hope.

A big, warm, piece of cornbread, slathered with honey and butter, is the perfect sidekick to chili, stew, and any Southwest dish, in my opinion. As an all-American food, cornmeal pancakes — also called Johnny cakes, ho cakes, and ashcakes — were a staple for many early settlers who enjoyed the simplicity of that sweet cornmeal baked into a quickbread. At their core, Johnny cakes are just flat, fried cornbread, making use of the abundance of America's vast expanses of corn in a filling and financially-friendly way.

IHOP, perhaps in a quest to pay tribute to those early settlers (or maybe just to cash in on the deliciousness — and inexpensiveness — of cornmeal), introduced its Cornbread Pancakes way back in 2006. Information on the dish is spotty, but Reddit users, plagued by the memories of these delicious flapjacks, can't seem to forget them. There are tons of recipes out there for cornbread pancakes, but I'll be skipping any that have actual corn kernels on top, thank you.

Head to any kids' birthday party and you'll learn quickly that it isn't about the venue, the friends invited, or, really, even the gifts. It's all about the cupcakes. With sprinkles, upsettingly bright frosting, and chocolate or vanilla cake stuffed with confetti-esque dots, cupcakes are basically their own specialized food group in the kid world.

IHOP's Cupcake Pancakes cashed in on this nostalgic love for cupcakes from both kids and adults and featured a buttermilk pancake filled with rainbow sprinkles, topped with a cream cheese-based cupcake icing, whipped cream, and more sprinkles. Sadly, IHOP quietly removed the item from its regular menu within this past year. However, diehard fans and Reddit users have pointed out a workaround. The Cupcake Pancake still exists in a smaller form on the kids' menu, so each location should, arguably, have the ingredients needed to create a larger version of the dish. Just ask your server, nicely, if they can accommodate your request.