Aloha Stacks

For reasons that should be obvious from the photographs, we started out extremely excited about Aloha Stacks (formerly Stacks Pancake House), a Hawaiian breakfast shop with both tropical and hipster menu vibes. Years ago, the only real issues were service-related: Tables tended to be scarce during breakfast hours, and even after group seating was secured, one or more people would need to wait (easily half an hour) in line to place an order at the counter, followed by another half hour wait for dishes to arrive. Once a food runner delivered your meal – including crunchy peanut butter French toast, mochi Nutella waffles, toffee fruit waffles, and strawberry banana Nutella crepes – all was forgiven, as the plates typically transcended expectations. By local or even national standards, the chain’s novelties were superb, though basics such as chocolate chip pancakes were comparatively nothing special.

Then something happened to Stacks. We stopped going back after two dissatisfying experiences in a row, one particularly bad, when items tasted as if they hadn’t been prepared properly. When one of us told our server that “the Mexican hot chocolate doesn’t have any chocolate flavor today, it just tastes like sweet milk,” the bizarre response was: “We don’t put chocolate in it.” Once the food arrived, we went up to the counter because “the guava toffee French toast doesn’t taste like toffee or guava,” and were told that “the toffee’s in the (strawberry-flavored) sauce.” No effort was made to acknowledge or fix the issues; it was clear that we were merely numbers to the server and counter staff, who had moved on to other orders. Given the long waits we had endured for messed-up food and drinks, this wasn’t okay.

When we have a hankering for pancakes, waffles, or crepes these days, we typically visit Snooze instead. There’s less Hawaiian influence, and typically still a wait for tables – totally understandable given its popularity – but they offer frequent new flavor options, and once you’re seated, your server actually takes care of you. For Stacks’ sake, here’s hoping it can turn things around.