The folks behind one of the oldest traditions in Martinsville made an appearance earlier this year, when the City Council talked trash disposal with various agencies and business owners in the city’s Uptown.
“I’m here representing the pancake cookers,” said Nelson Evans.
“The pancake cookers?” echoed newly elected councilor Julian Mei, half jokingly, in response.
Evans would later explain that the pancake cookers are the members of the Martinsville’s Kiwanis Club and others whose combined effort results in the biannual Pancake Day celebration, arguably the city’s most popular celebrations and, for the local Kiwanis Club, largest fundraisers.
“We’re a local charity,” said Sam Nichols, a retired Health Department official who joined the Kiwanis Club sometime around 28 years ago. At the time Nichols, a new transplant to the Martinsville community, wanted to become more engaged.
Martinsville’s Kiwanis Club seemed like the ideal avenue to do just that.
What to know
if you go
Date: Thursday, Oct. 9
Time: 7 a.m. to 6:30 p.m.
Location: Broad Street lot
100 East Church St.
Martinsville
“It’s all about charity,” Nichols said about the Kiwanis Club, an international organization that raises funds for child advocacy, charities and child-focused projects.
Locally, Kiwanis holds fundraisers with the Pancake Day being the largest. Martinsville’s Kiwanis has put on the Pancake Day event for around 65 to 68 years, according to Nichols.
When he joined the group, Pancake Day was already in full swing, and his introduction to the event was a sort of baptism-by-fire. With no experience, the senior members put him on griddle duty.
He hasn’t stopped cooking since.
“It has gotten to be an almost overwhelming event,” Nichols said. “We feed between 2,800 and 3,000 people.”
Every six months, Nichols and a group of his fellow club members make their way to the city’s Church Street parking lot, where they methodically erect rows of chairs, tables and makeshift canopies. They set up the day’s ingredients, their gas-powered skillets and various other equipment in preparation to cook and serve thousands of pancakes, all day, beneath the shadow of a giant chair.
Between the hours of 7 a.m. and 6:30 p.m., it’s difficult to miss if you’re entering Martinsville’s Uptown district via Church Street. Throughout most of the day, throngs of people fill the Church Street parking lot and take their spot in a line that is almost always in danger of stretching around the block.
But why? What is it about this particular event that draws such large and consistent crowds throughout the day? Is the pancake itself the most obvious answer?
Consider the pancake
“People love breakfast food, and they love to eat breakfast foods when it isn’t breakfast,” said Kiwanis member Gary Collins, one of the line cooks.
An article by the American Osteopathic Association looked at the growing trend and found advantages to having breakfast for dinner.
“Eating a light breakfast at dinner instead of the traditional dinnertime fare such as pasta, meat and potatoes is beneficial for a number of reasons,” said Dr. Natalie A. Nevins, a board-certified family physician in Hollywood, California. “The ingredients in breakfast foods are often less expensive, quicker to prepare, and, most importantly, lower in calories.”
And among all the breakfast foods, pancakes are some of the most recognizable. They are also among the easiest to prepare, which, according to Collins, accounts for why it’s the item of choice for Kiwanis’ primary fundraiser.
“We’ve had people that would bring eggs and wanted us to cook eggs on the griddle. Yeah, we’re not going to do that. Then we’ve had people bring in blueberries and chocolate chips to put in their pancakes as we cook it.”
Gary Collins, Kiwanis member and Pancake Day line cook
The Kiwanis pancake, as described by the chefs who cook them, isn’t much different from the kind found in most American kitchens.
“We buy a mix, a commercial mix,” Nichols said, choosing not to disclose the brand. “We buy through a commercial vendor. It’s not anything special that we do.”
He described it as a simple mixture, not too much fuss or fanfare.
“The only thing that we have to do is add water to it,” Nichols said.
For the purposes of feeding a large number of people, the Kiwanis-style of pancake is ideal, but it’s far from the only kind. Whether it be the Western hotcake, the Midwestern flapjack, or the more refined Japanese fuwa fuwa, pancakes are as diverse as the myriad cultures that enjoy them.
At its core, the pancake is a mixture of dry and wet ingredients that, when heated with a low and consistent heat, forms into a soft, cakelike structure, often enjoyed with syrup, simple syrup, maple syrup, honey and the occasional butter.
Although the city’s pancake tradition predates current Kiwanis members, Nichols and others speculated their predecessors wanted a food that would appeal to the greatest number of people living in the region.
Behind the scenes
The folks that make Pancake Day possible have the process down to a science. While the event requires several people, split into morning, afternoon and evening shifts, the process is derived from a decades old playbook.
Each event comes with a price tag of around $14,000, according to Nichols.
“We start about three weeks before … putting work schedules to the members of the club, ordering the food, going out to the city to get a license from them.”
We do Pancake Day every six months. Once we do one, we don’t want to eat or smell anything like a pancake for the next three months.
Gary Collins
The menu, according to Collins, consists of sausage, coffee or a bottled drink, and, of course, pancakes. While sausages are limited to a single serving, patrons can eat multiple servings of pancakes for $10 a ticket.
Collins said it isn’t out of the ordinary for some patrons to try to expand their options with their own menu modifications.
“We’ve had people that would bring eggs and wanted us to cook eggs on the griddle,” Collins said. “Yeah, we’re not going to do that. Then we’ve had people bring in blueberries and chocolate chips to put in their pancakes as we cook it.”
While traffic is consistent throughout the day, there are large rushes of during breakfast, lunch and at the end of the workday.
Collins said that he and others are always surprised by how popular the event is. Since the start of his Kiwanis membership the event has become slightly larger with each passing year.
Tony Turner, an early birder, said he isn’t surprised.
“This is a good way for the Kiwanis to raise some money,” Turner said in between bites at the April event. “It’s good to support civic organizations that like to support our community. That’s why we come out.”
The big three
Nichols and Collins said the relative convenience of cooking pancakes makes it a practical choice for the event. They don’t believe the popular alternatives, waffles and French toast, would have the same impact pancakes have.
While not the only consideration, practicality is a significant factor.
“I guess it’s because it’s pretty easy to get set up with it,” Nichols said. “Maybe the people who started it locally may have been in the food service business.”
Collins agreed.
“It’s a fall dish, sort of,” Collins said. “It’s just a good dish that works for all three meals.”
While Collins believes pancakes make for a good fundraiser, his personal tastes for breakfast differ, depending on when you ask him.
“We do Pancake Day every six months,” Collins said. “Once we do one, we don’t want to eat or smell anything like a pancake for the next three months.”
Collins painfully admitted he sometimes finds himself preferring a waffle and he isn’t alone.
“They are a little crunchy and I like them,” said Martinsville resident Brooke Wells, as she cut into her first stack of pancakes at April’s Pancake Day. “But I’ll eat a pancake.”
Nichols said, despite people’s personal preferences, pancakes are the more popular of the big three.
“Pancakes are much easier,” Nichols said while chuckling at the idea of a French Toast Day. “That’s not good for open-air use by any means.”
The majority of guests echoed Nichols’ sentiments about an event centered around French toast, with some questioning whether or not it as universally appealing as pancakes.
“Who doesn’t love pancakes,” said Susan Collins and her friend Brenda Carter, two of the first customers at the last Pancake Day in April.
Bringing everyone together
Susan Collins has been a return patron for 30 years while Carter has only attended two events. Both agreed that the big draw of the event was the sense of community it evokes.
“It’s one big event for civic camaraderie,” Collins said. “Eveybody sees everybody, you’re going to know everybody there. It’s just a big community event where everybody sees everybody.”
Among the patrons of April’s Pancake Day, being out and seeing people from across Martinsville was what, they said, makes Pancake Day a successful event.
Organizers agreed, saying that despite a dip in the popularity of civic club participation, events like Pancake Day remain popular.
“Civic clubs these days are not growing, it’s hard to get people to commit,” Nichols said. “But people look forward to [Pancake Day]. It’s something outside, it’s something they can count on.”
Ultimately, Collins and Nichols said he and others don’t put on the event to drive Kiwanis participation. Kiwanis members know this is something the community loves and they hope to keep doing it for as long as they can.
“People like to see it come right off the grill and right on to the plate,” Nichols said. “They just like that. You have your ups and downs during the day, but everyone leaves happy.”