Wall Raising

The walls are up on the Habitat for Humanity House that our customers, employees and one generous eBay bidder helped fund. Check out pictures from the wall-raising ceremony:

Donation Breakfast

(Pictured left to right: E.J. Thomas, Sue Melnyk, Keith Wright, Steve Davis and Justin Cox)

Happy belated Pancake Day, everyone! We celebrated Pancake Day by having, what else, Stacked and Stuffed Hotcakes with our friends from Habitat for Humanity Greater Columbus at our Bob Evans Restaurant on South Olentangy River Road. Our Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer Steve Davis presented E.J. Thomas and Sue Melnyk of Habitat for Humanity Greater Columbus with a check for $75,000 (don't worry we gave them one the bank would accept too). Our restaurant teams and customers did a great job raising money to help build a home for a deserving family. A big thank you to everyone who pitched in and to Bob Evans Area Director Justin Cox and General Manager for Keith Wright for hosting our breakfast!

Cape Coral, Fla.

Bob Evans Restaurants makes an effort to give back to every community where we operate. As a part of the opening-day festivities for each restaurant, we donate 50 cents per opening day customer to a local charity. Last week we opened a new restaurant in Cape Coral, Fla., and partnered with the Lee County Habitat for Humanity. And in addition to the opening-day donation, our new restaurant provided refreshments for a recent Habitat home dedication.

Trisha Keehn of Lee County Habitat was nice enough to share pictures with us from the dedication.

Congratulations, Jon Moorhead!

Congratulations, Jon Moorhead of Zanesville, Ohio!

Jon is the winner of our eBay auction for a 3-day trip to have breakfast with company founder Bob Evans and Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer Steve Davis.

Nutritional Information

Several of you have asked for the nutritional facts for the Stacked and Stuffed Hotcakes. Nutritional information for the Stacked and Stuffed Hotcakes and all of our other menu items can be found here.

The History of Hotcakes

While we didn't flip the original hotcake, we'd like to think we've help them evolve into the cravable breakfast they are today.

Learn more about the history of hotcakes.

How We Built Stacked and Stuffed Hotcakes

Interview Part II with Senior Development Chef Brian Murphy

Q: What was the process for creating Stacked and Stuffed Hotcakes?
A: First we took our “blue-sky ideas” to the new products committee and from there we started to narrow down the product list. For the Stacked and Stuffed hotcakes we put 14 different types on the Internet and our marketing team asked for customers’ opinions through an online survey. With the help of 4,000 customers, we narrowed down the original 14 flavors to the five that we took into our test markets.

The first week of the test was focused on operations. We made sure that our grill cooks could produce it efficiently; kitchen prep could make it and follow the recipe easily and that it wouldn’t interrupt the servers’ work flow. We also looked at the food cost, food safety (how long we can keep the batter fresh/shelf life) and other technical issues that helped us make a better, fresher product. After that, we gathered the management team and employee feedback, corrected any recipe issues and then did a three-week consumer phase. In that phase, we surveyed our customers about what they liked, what they didn’t like, how frequently they dine with us, what they typically order, their age and their gender. All of the information we gathered not only helped us improve the product but also helped us build a customer profile (who will be ordering it).

Q: What improvements have been made since the test phase?
A: We worked on the food cost and the technical parts of the product so we can offer our customers a better tasting, fresher product at a lower cost.

Q: Who came up with the name for the hotcakes?
A: Mary, our senior vice president of marketing. She really thinks outside of the box and is willing to push the limits creatively. She’s a lot of fun to work with because she is so enthusiastic about the food.

Q: Why are the Stacked and Stuffed Hotcakes a great fit for Bob Evans?
A: I truly believe we have the best hotcakes in the industry – they are definitely a signature dish, and the filling we use to “stuff” the hotcakes has been a great success for us. Our customers love it in our stuffed French toast and our crepes too.

Bob Evans is known for having a solid tradition in savory breakfasts and we want to expand our breakfast line for those with a sweet tooth who might want to indulge at breakfast or for breakfast at dinner.


Check back soon and send us your pictures of your own adventures with Stacked and Stuffed Hotcakes! (Post them in your Flickr photo album with the tag "bobevans")

eBay auction update - we have a winner!

Congratulations, bidder #7 - the winner of the 3-day vacation and breakfast with company founder Mr. Bob Evans and CEO Steve Davis!

Less than 2 days left to bid on Breakfast with Mr. Bob Evans

Bid now!

Four Hotcakes of the Apocalypse

According to the NY Times, Bob Evans' entrance into the blogosphere may be a signal of the marketing apocalypse. Stuart, we definitely appreciate your humor - who would have thought that the company that started on a farm more than 50 years ago in southeastern Ohio would be joining the blogosphere?!? Saying that, step back and think about what a blog is - casual conversation enabled by open lines of honest communication and a responsive author - add a side of sausage gravy and some hotcakes and that definitely sounds like the type of conversation you'd have with one of our servers at the counter at Bob Evans. Think of our blog as an extension of that conversation - only you'll have to get your coffee to-go when you're headed to your computer .

We're very excited to open lines of communications with those who are passionate about our brand and our products. Join the conversation and tell about your Bob Evans stories (just about everyone we meet has one). Sit down, grab your cup of coffee and let's chat.