Gilbertson's Pancake House

An honest to goodness old style diner with great food and good service, although I still don't understand why I was charged CA$1.00 extra for the bread?!

I am declaring this the best breakfast in the Niagara Region, bar none! Ate here on Christmas eve day and had a fantastic breakfastAs always.

One of the best breakfast places in Ridgeway. All the standards with friendly service in a clean environment.

The restaurant is part of a larger maple syrup operation and store and the new building is a marvel of wooden beam construction. Set on St. Joe's island, which is a pretty place in its own right, the restaurant offers plentiful breakfast food at a reasonable price. The pancakes (and of course the SYRUP!) are excellent and very large ... so be advised! Service is friendly and efficient as they move a lot of people through most weekends. Worth the trip and yes, I'd go back!

After many years of anticipating a trip to a sugar shack, I finally thought I'd made my dreams come true. How wrong was I? The place was packed when we got there around 10:30. We were told it would be a two hour wait. Two hours?!? For pancakes? The dining room had loads of space and not enough tables. They could easily squeeze in more. When we finally did sit down and ordered food, it took a good 15-20 minutes for the food to be served. I understood then why we had to wait two hours. I ordered pancakes which were very disappointing. They fell apart and were too fluffy which is a sure sign that they use too much leavening in their mix. I was really surprised that a restaurant who mainly makes pancakes to go with their syrup do not know how to make pancakes. The rest of the food was good. None of it was remotely reasonable in price. The butter tarts were $2.50 and a litre of maple syrup was a whopping $24.00. Costco sells a litre of Canadian Grade A maple syrup for $12.00. You may have thought you would might get some value after driving for hours to get there but you would be sadly mistaken.We unfortunately did not believe we would be waiting 2 hours and did not take the tractor ride around the property to see the maples in their sap sucking glory. By the time we finished eating, it was too late as it had taken 5 hours out of our day between the drive there and back and the long wait to eat and be served.The property itself was pretty. Thats it. Why everyone is enamoured of this place is beyond me. I've had much better--at a fraction of the price--pancakes at a Cracker Barrel in the States.