Thrift Treasure: Pancake Pile-Up! Game

Breakfast food is a theme I rarely see in board games. A few years ago, we were having fun with Yummy Yummy Pancakes by Sweet Lemon Publishing. This week we happened across another pancake-themed game at thrift, Pancake Pile-Up! by Educational Insights.

Unlike the prior game, which was a memory-based dexterity challenge, Pancake Pile-Up! tasks up to twelve players, divided into two teams, to serve up orders to customers. The game box includes ten plastic pancakes of varying flavors, which are placed into the grill-like box bottom at least fifteen feet away from the play area. Plastic butter pats are also put in the same box. Two plates, one for each team, are placed into the play area. The deck of order cards are set next to the grill (box).

To begin the game, one of the order cards is turned over. It will show the sequence of how the pancakes must be stacked on the plate by flavor. Someone calls “Order Up!” and one person from each team takes their plastic spatula and scrambles to find the first pancake on the order card.

Servers then race to their plates with the pancake on their spatula and stack it. They will then run back to the grill and hand off the spatula to the next person on their team who does the same thing, stacking the next pancake in order. Once all the pancakes have been stacked, the next server will deliver a pat of butter to top off the order. The team who accomplishes this first is the winner of Pancake Pile-up!

Pancake Pile-Up! is a quick game that helps young players with gross motor skills. It also introduces them to sequential order, a beginning match skill. Each game lasts only a few minutes, so give the teams another shot by making the game the best two out of three!

You can find copies of Pancake Pile-Up! brand new on Amazon. We got lucky and picked up our copy at Goodwill for only $2.88 and it was completely unplayed! Even the cards were still in their shrink-wrap! If you do find a used version, make sure all the parts are present. Even if it is missing just one, the game will be unplayable.

Do you know of any other pancake-themed board games?