Hanover Pancake keeping up with the times [Topeka Capital Journal (KS)]

Editor's note: This is part of an ongoing series about long- running, locally owned restaurants in Topeka.

Good food and good service are the main ingredients that have kept customers coming back to the Hanover Pancake House, 1034 S. Kansas Ave., since the late 1960s.

"That's what dad taught me," said owner Scott Albrecht, 50. "If you put out quality, you're going to have people keep coming in."

While the area manager for the Hanover franchise that started in Wichita, his father, Don Albrecht, accepted an offer to buy the Topeka restaurant in late 1969 or early 1970. The younger Albrecht said he started working for his father at the downtown eatery in 1983.

"It was the most enjoyable time I ever had," he said. "We worked well together. The things we had going on were good lessons for me."

Those lessons, Albrecht said, were about serving quality food with good ingredients, treating the wait staff with respect and being flexible.

"It builds that relationship that helps us both stay happy," he said. "My employees tell me I'm a good boss, but I try to keep my employees happy, too."

Many of Hanover's wait staff members have worked for the Albrechts for seven years or more, including Darlene Walter, who started waiting tables at the pancake house in 1971. She said she cried when she made the recent decision to cut back the number of hours she was working during the week.

"They're just wonderful to work for," she said. "I just love my job. I love the customers."

Walter admits she doesn't always do a good job of remembering customers' names but can recall the food that regular customers usually order.

"I can sure tell you what they eat," she said.

Walter said she has had customers get mad when she has had to tell them they have run out of Hanover's signature biscuits and gravy. She said customers ask all year long when the pumpkin pancakes are coming back, which are served between October and March.

Although the mainstay comfort foods have kept customers coming through Hanover's doors, Albrecht said the restaurant has had to evolve to remain current with healthy food trends and technology.

Hanover has a Facebook page, and beginning in mid-September, Albrecht began offering online ordering for carry-out at www.hanoverpancakehouse.com. He hasn't been flooded with online orders yet, but he believes the numbers will grow as more people find out about the service.

Decades before the launching of the Internet and Facebook, a group of mostly insurance adjusters started their own social network at Hanover.

Keith Hall, Don Cooper and Sam Hurd are three of about 10 to 12 men who started meeting at Hanover at 9 a.m. every Friday 45 years ago. Several of the men are Vietnam War veterans, and a few have died, but those remaining continue to gather at the restaurant on a weekly basis.

"We solve all the world's problems, whether it's politics or sports," Hall said laughingly. "We're just part of the woodwork around here."