Hank's Creekside Restaurant - Santa Rosa - Restaurants, Cafes & Food Reviews

Hank's was recently featured by Guy Fieri on Food Network's Diners, Drive Ins, and Dives which is one of my favorite shows! Since my parents were visiting for the weekend and we were going to Santa Rosa to see the Charles Schulz museum, thought it would be great to have breakfast here beforehand. They are known for their pancakes which come a variety of ways and looked absolutely yummy on the show.

When looking for directions, I found that they are known for extremely long waits on the weekends. I know better and should've told Mom to be ready two hours before I actually wanted to leave so we could keep on schedule! LOL. It's about a two hour drive from the Sacramento area so by the time we arrived, it was almost lunch time! LOL.

This is truly a hole in the wall type place - if you miss the entrance, you are screwed! The city of Santa Rosa apparently has a thing against u-turns and after 15 minutes of getting back around to the right street, I managed to find parking in the plaza next door in front of what looked like some mid-evil flower shop!

There were quite a few people outside and she said the wait for 4 was about 35 minutes which I didn't think was bad for a Saturday. I am guessing the wait was less since it was almost noon by this point!

Once we were inside I understand how the wait could be so long - I only saw about 15 tables or so. It's very tiny but very cozy. I got the House Special of eggs, meat, and 2 buttermilk chocolate chip pancakes! Mom had the Strawberry ones with the most unbelieve fresh whipped cream I've ever tasted. Dad tried the biscuits and gravy which he said were good. Their pancakes are definitely the best I've tried - they are lighter and fluffier than any I've tried before. Still couldn't eat both of them but gave it my best try!!!

Between near starvation :-) and being preoccupied watching this family take about 300 pics of each other outside the restaurant (they seriously put us TB'rs to shame with the number of pics they took!!) I forgot to take pics of our food!!! (Sorry Mel!!) In my defense, pictures of bacon and eggs aren't the most exciting anyways! :-)

Overall it was pretty reasonable - with tip, the bill ended up around $40. I'd definitely come back if I am in the area again....want to see try their seasonal fruit pancakes and more of that fresh whipped cream! Definitely no Redi-Whip out of a can! LOL.