{"id":250290,"date":"2026-04-03T17:00:14","date_gmt":"2026-04-03T17:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/250290\/"},"modified":"2026-04-03T17:00:14","modified_gmt":"2026-04-03T17:00:14","slug":"online-hype-nearly-spoils-breakfast-at-122-year-old-bay-area-hotel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/250290\/","title":{"rendered":"Online hype nearly spoils breakfast at 122-year-old Bay Area hotel"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last year during certain Sunday mornings, a taste of San Francisco hype culture started regularly appearing among the manzanita and needlegrass near the peak of Mount Tamalpais: people waiting in line<\/a> after seeing something online. They hiked nearly 2 miles in pursuit of pancakes<\/a> and queued on the trail for $13 plates. Nobody was more surprised by their idling than Alyssa Jorgensen.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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The chair of the Pancake Breakfast Committee arrived at the West Point Inn for a volunteer shift in October to find a horde of people snaking around the historic hotel perched 1,781 feet above the nearby ocean. Social media posts from the time showed hikers marching like ants up Old Stage Road<\/a> to take a bite and then post a pic of the latest Bay Area experiential trend.<\/p>\n

Jorgensen told SFGATE she was stunned to see how the crowd had appeared 90 minutes before volunteers even started serving breakfast at 9 a.m. The kitchen tried to keep up, rapidly whisking dozens of gallons of just-add-water pancake batter.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\"The<\/p>\n

The $13 pancake breakfast for adults at the West Point Inn.<\/p>\n

Eric Brooks\/SFGATE\"Looking<\/p>\n

Looking toward San Francisco from the Mount Tamalpais summit, above the West Point Inn.<\/p>\n

Tom Charoensinphon\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

The West Point Inn has hosted its Pancake Breakfast Fundraiser once a month from May to October for decades to support the 122-year-old inn. Traditionally, they\u2019d welcome anywhere between 500 and 800 people a month, except on Mother\u2019s Day, when they\u2019d tally 1,000 pancake breakfasts served.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Over the past two summers, it\u2019s been Mother\u2019s Day on repeat as clips about the fundraiser spread on social media. \u201cWe\u2019d quiz people about how they heard about us,\u201d Jorgensen said. \u201cIt\u2019s a different demographic: younger hikers from all over the Bay Area. They came in groups. They said they saw us on TikTok and Instagram.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Those busy mornings became such a routine \u2014 placing a strain not only on the volunteer program but on nearby trailheads \u2014 that organizers decided to adapt the fundraiser heading into this summer.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Instead of serving anyone who appears, West Point Inn is launching a reservation system<\/a> for about 900 people max each month. And to help curb some of the intensity, the Sunday morning tradition is only going to occur for four months instead of six: May 10 (Mother\u2019s Day), June 21 (Father\u2019s Day), Aug. 9 and Sep. 13. No July or October breakfasts.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Crowds<\/p>\n

Crowds of hikers gather for pancakes at the West Point Inn in 2025.<\/p>\n

Eric Brooks\/SFGATE<\/p>\n

By removing two months, Jorgensen said it gives volunteers a break. Also, October events were sometimes canceled because of red flag warnings \u2014 a particular concern this year due to the state\u2019s sparse snowpack<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Tickets are available through the inn\u2019s website<\/a>. For the first breakfast of the year, on Mother\u2019s Day, they are slated to appear sometime mid-morning on Friday, April 3. \u201cWe wanted to keep Mother\u2019s and Father\u2019s Day,\u201d Jorgensen said. \u201cThey\u2019ve historically brought more guests and created more memories for people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Visitor impact on Mount Tamalpais State Park was mostly unnoticeable, until the breakfast started filling the parking lots at the Bootjack and Pantoll campgrounds nearby or along the edge roads in the park.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a fair amount of extra work for State Park employees,\u201d Jorgensen said. \u201cThat didn\u2019t seem right or fair, especially since it\u2019s so removed from the Inn itself.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Breakfast at the West Point Inn started sometime in the 1970s and it\u2019s become an important source of revenue. Jorgensen, who used to serve on the board for the inn and was once its president, said the fundraiser provides around 10-15% of the annual income. \u201cIt\u2019s the blueberry on top,\u201d she said. The inn covers the rest of its expenses through overnight stays and dues from its membership program, which has about 600 people.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Mountain<\/p>\n

Mountain bikers at the West Point Inn.<\/p>\n

Colleen Proppe\/flickr Editorial\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Jorgensen said the inn is seeing strong occupation these days, a welcome change after setbacks during the pandemic. Toward the end of 2020, as hospitality cratered, the inn\u2019s managers launched a fundraiser<\/a> for $20,000 that kept the century-old property from closing.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As the restrictions from the pandemic began to fade, the record for most pancake breakfasts served was about 1,000<\/a> on a single Mother\u2019s Day. Each ensuing summer, it became more and more popular, until 2024 when footage about the experience started overflowing online.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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There\u2019s an unofficial fan page<\/a> on Instagram for the inn with more than 1,300 followers (the Facebook page<\/a> for the innkeepers has half as many) and one visitor called the breakfast a \u201cbucket list<\/a>\u201d outing.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt really is the experience and being there \u2014 standing in line was part of the experience. It\u2019s mind blowing, I hate standing in line for things,\u201d Jorgensen said. \u201cSome call it the \u2018viral pancake hike<\/a>\u2019 and we\u2019re like, \u2018Really? It\u2019s just the West Point Inn.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n