Sophia's House of Pancakes — Restaurant in Benton Charter Township

Snow drifts from the sky as I write this review. It was falling from the sky, blowing across the roadways, and sheathing the world in a tomb of ice as my friends and I made our way to Sophia's House of Pancakes. This day, there should be no one out and about, everyone should be huddled with their loved ones asking if the world will ever see the sun again. That's the thing about snow, the thing about weather in general, it tends to direct our mood more than we would care to admit. However, there was no sense of cold once we stomped our snow caked boots off at the front door. Not only were we greeted with a warm hello, we were shown to our seats and given warm coffee before we had a chance to shake father winters dust from our jackets. Now, I hate to take you on a circuitous route through my review, but it seems I'm getting ahead of myself and I believe that all of my readers deserve the truth. About 30 minutes before our hands were being warmed by coffee and bellies filling with delicious eggs and hashbrowns we were scrolling through google as many 20-somethings our age do. My friend began rattling off the usual chains, IHOP, Denny's, Wendy's, I'm sure there were more, but for the life of me I can't remember as by chance we decided on Sophia's House of Pancakes. I was expecting an average, run of the mill dining experience, and what I found was much more. You see, this is the last time for a long time that I am going to spend with these particular friends. I wasn't looking for a place to truly dazzle me with food, because I was already doing what I love: spending time with quality friends. Any good tasting food would enhance that experience, but I would settle for okay tasting food. Little did I know that we stumbled upon what can only de described as the peak of the pancake houses. I ordered a 5 egg Omlette, which came with hashbrowns, toast, and french toast. I also ordered the Cinnamon roll french toast. I wish I would have taken pictures of the food, but after it was in front of me a rapturous experience had begun. When I say that every bite of this food brought me closer to God, I wish that was an understatement. One remark that was made between my party and I was the sheer marvel that eating is. We are a species that evolved through survival pieced together through various genetic programming and one aspect of that programming saw fit to make eating a pleasurable experience, but I doubt any intelligent designer could have foreseen the poetry that Sophia's House of Pancakes writes with each flip of the spatula, each crack of the egg. When one truly sits down and thinks about it, millions of years of evolution had to happen to sweep us all to this moment. My ancestors survived the predators of the African plains only to move north and face the bitter winters of Europe, they left the emerald isle due to famine and landed in New York, but the promise of jobs in Detroit brought them to Michigan. I have spent my life here, I grew up here, I was diagnosed with cancer here and beat it here too. One of the only moments of joy when I would go to the hospital for my treatment at 11 years old was stopping at a different house of pancakes and ordering the chocolate chip pancakes and hot chocolate. Here, it feels like a different life, I am no longer that scared, frustrated little boy. Instead I am a young man, enjoyed the time I was gifted with the people I love the most. They'll be under different stars soon as they take to the road, but this memory will warm me for many nights to come. Not only did Sophia's house of pancakes bring me this moment of joy, they also brought me a full stomach and a full heart. I give Sophia's House of Pancakes, 5 stars.

TLDR: Amazing and scrumptious food, amazing...

They need to Train their team to handle the rush, get a process in order to maximize their own profits and provide a good experience. There were enough staff, but they were panicked and complaining, and disorganized. We waited at our table for 45 min for breakfast (two adults and one kid). They gotta get their process down for the front of the house. Host was smiling and calm. She wanted to help. She had spare time. But she would disappear by the kitchen every few minutes but not deliver any of the food that was ready and waiting. She left 6 tables open (booths, not big reservations) for 15 minutes while the lobby filled up with people. That caused a delay of about 50 minutes overall and then kitchen got slammed again as a result. That’s why you ran out of menus, too. The servers didn’t know how to move through their processes in an organized way and they were losing track of everything. They were freaking out and yelling, “what do you want me to do?” Which is a perfect opportunity to train and show them what to do. Host: Seat open tables immediately. Host can pour coffee, tidy a restroom and bring any orders on the fly, especially if they want to go hang out by the food window so frequently. Always hustle to seat new parties when a table comes up. Servers: put your orders into the kitchen immediately and empower everybody to deliver hot food IMMEDIATELY. Then you get to flip your tables twice as fast and keep it moving. Fresher food will be a lot better. It was noticeable that our food sat for 20 of the 40 minutes we waited for it. Pouring coffee for your regulars, chatting distractedly and putting in food to the kitchen not in the order it was given causes a backup. Hard pancakes for my husband and cold fries for me. But I still thought it was tasty. Whomever the lady manager was today she should be the one to fix this. She also needs to be respectful to her staff team and big groups of guests—be a better leader to keep this cute place afloat. Acting preoccupied with larger reservations but also being not smooth with the group (asked them to give a credit card in the waiting area before even seating them??? What? That’s so offensive to some nice older gentleman who was looking for a good day out with family. And you said, “I’m not saying you’re going to leave without paying…but ‘some people do’ good lord that’s awkward service by Sophia’s. Ask a large party about payment when reservations are made or at the end, not in front of all waiting in the lobby—OMG—cringey faux pas). She should’ve run food and kept things on track. You want to be the place that people go to because you can run your operation with excellent, reliable speedy flow. Your food isn’t necessarily better than IHOP and IHOP knows exactly what to do to keep things running well. Take note of how they do it and you will improve, even as an independent restaurant. IHOP has the whole meal finished in under 30 min for average size parties, and then they let guests linger over coffee if they like. Yes I’ll go to IHOP in the future (never enough IHOP) but there are plenty of hungry...

I visited this restaurant for the first time yesterday, and came back today to edit my initial post. Seeing the response to my review,I need to be clear. I ordered coffee, the waitress brought it and when I looked at the white cup, it had brown DRIED coffee drips all over it! It wasn't like a reasonable drip or a splash from the pot. It was on the complete outside circumference of the cup and was clearly dried. When I told the waitress, she wasn't rude(and neither was I)but she said she must have spilled some while pouring. There was no way possible that there would be that much the entire way around. I wiped it with a dry finger, then wet my finger and showed her that it was fully dried! It was a filthy mug...FACT! I didn't harass the girl, or make a scene, we just were so grossed out by being served a drink in such a dirty cup that we chose to leave. I know how hard it is to be wait staff, and dealing with rude patrons, and I wasn't about to make her day worse by arguing. The fact is, no matter how you try to justify it, WHOMEVER was in charge of washing dishes that day failed miserably. It poses a health hazard and I only mention it because it was a fact. In my initial review, I had mentioned prices and to be completely honest, we are sympathetic to any businesses who survived Covid. Costs are up ,and many establishments found it necessary to close.You have to adjust,and that is understandable.So I deleted our thoughts on that. Keeping afloat in this economy is tough, so that isn't the issue. But my review of yesterday about the cleanliness of the coffee cup is true, I don't care what your "footage"was. I was served coffee in a filthy mug, covered in brown drips the entire circumference . truthfully, I wouldn't have left a review at all, except for my very real concern for someone else getting seriously ill. The waitress was polite, offered to get me another cup, but when she said that the cup was probably as dirty as it was, because she spilled a little while pouring...that simply wasn't true. Just please...do better.You can argue, but I am no liar, and that was my...