The first Skinny Pancake was served on Wednesday evening of June 4, 2003. The owners, Jonny and Benjy Adler, had no experience, a cart made of wood scraps from their parents’ kitchen flooring, and a junked sailboat trailer that had been crudely outfitted into a flatbed.
Since then it has been a story of steady growth. 2005 saw the expansion of festival tours throughout New York and New England with our veggie-oil powered school bus ‘Sueno.’ With a deep commitment to serving local foods whenever possible, the Skinny Pancake was welcomed into the Vermont Fresh Network in 2006.
But the migrant lifestyle of the vending cart had its challenges. Specifically: nobody likes to eat in the rain, and we need a kitchen to serve food. So, we looked around to find a commercial kitchen to rent, but then thought, “well, if we’re going to rent a kitchen we might as well have a place for customers to sit…. If we’re going to have a place to sit it might as well be a nice place to sit…. If we’re going to have a nice place to sit we should dedicate it to everything local: local culture, local music, and of course local food & the farmers that provide it.”
Four years after the first creped served, we opened the doors to the first Skinny Pancake down on Burlington’s waterfront at Lake & College in June 2007 with dozens of new crepe dishes for all to enjoy. Countless local (and non-local) musicians have graced the stage while listeners of all ages have packed the house, which is designed so that you can see the musician from every seat.
In June 2009, we swung open the doors to a slightly more “Mini Skinny” in the heart of our little capital, Montpelier. The big windows open up to a patio and the town center. The Chubby Muffin opened in September 2010, along with our full-service catering business ‘Have Your Cake Catering’.