By Becky Grunewald
We’re all looking for comfort in these times, and the measured tone of Pancake Circus co-owner Nick Ruebel is calming to a journalist who has been fretting about the fate of this and other historic Sacramento restaurants.
I don’t go to Pancake Circus often, but in my broke, car-less college days, I lived at 26th and U streets and worked at Tower Theater. The stretch of Broadway that spans from what was then Joe Marty’s El Chico — where I would get a Styrofoam box of “broasted” potatoes to tide me through the shift when popcorn wasn’t enough — to the cheap, filling taco plates that can still be had at Los Jarritos supplied the majority of my meals. And I still vividly remember reading about Monica Lewinsky’s blue dress in The Sacramento Bee while sitting in a booth at what my roommates and I affectionately called “The Circus.”
Reached via Zoom in his Elk Grove home, Ruebel seemed a bit bemused by the slant of recent media coverage of his restaurant, including a piece by the Sacramento News & Review, which “made it seem like we were going out of business,” he said — although he noted that the hyperbolic tone was actually good for business and spurred worried patrons to order takeout.
Pancake Circus' owner Nick Reubel has worked in the restaurant since childhood.Andrew Nixon / CapRadio
He doesn’t seem stressed about closing, however, and the initial shelter-in-place order — which saw other beloved spots such as Biba Restaurant fold after less than two months — gave him impetus to explore changes in how he markets the restaurant.
The Circus recently has been getting some buzz because of a digital flyer that made the rounds on social media. Branded at top with its signature yellow neon sign, the ad sassily declares “Oh yes we did!” in reference to the fact that Pancake Circus is now serving a few Mexican dishes for dinner — in addition to their regular menu — three nights a week.
Customarily, it closes at 3 p.m., but the pandemic has caused it and other restaurants to pivot and grow, sometimes in unexpected ways.
A woman who also works at Pancake Circus as a server (she declined to be interviewed) and who has a background in catering cooks the Mexican dishes. Offerings rotate; on a recent night, they included saucy, spicy birria street-style tacos and piquant al pastor.
Pancake Circus serves Mexican food three nights a week, such as this birria taco.Andrew Nixon / CapRadio
A quesadilla on a house-made tortilla is one of the new Mexican offerings at Pancake Circus. Andrew Nixon / CapRadio
More changes have come for the staff, who are learning the state and county’s up-to-date sanitizing protocols and wearing masks. Partitions have been installed between the padded diner booths. And Ruebel says he has been able to bring back his staff of eight, who he had been keeping in touch with via text in the early days of the pandemic. Most are longtime workers: half pre-date the purchase of the restaurant by his father, Narem Muni, in 2002, and the longest-serving employee has clocked 35 years.
Ruebel himself says his on-the-job experience at Pancake Circus since the age of 10 taught him more about running a restaurant than his business degree from Sacramento State. His father, who owned restaurants in Hayward and Santa Cruz before moving to the region, became the fourth owner of the decades-old spot.
The Circus has also undergone a few makeovers, some of which were detailed recently by local writer Maryellen Burns, co-author (with brother Keith Burns) of the 2013 book Lost Restaurants of Sacramento and Their Recipes: Pancake Circus debuted as Al and Bud’s Platter in 1961, on the property of a former car lot owned by Syrian-American businessman Al Najas. Al and his wife, Myrle, also owned the Western-themed Trails restaurant just down the block, which became a Shoki Ramen House in 2015 and is now closed (possibly permanently) after a 2018 fire.
Al and Bud Sheely sold it to owners who re-branded it as Pancake Parade — there were several other Pancake Parades at that time in Sacramento — and then, in 1970, it was rebranded again as Pancake Circus, keeping the theme that persists to this day.
Cutouts of orange and yellow circus animals, which date to the ’70s, stare down on the new booth partitions, and hundreds of clown-themed artworks and dolls decorate the spacious restaurant. Ruebel says customers sometimes urge him to update the décor. “If you do that, it’s not Pancake Circus,” he said. “Then, it’s Denny’s.”
Nine-year employee Cecilia Garcia serves breakfast to Frank Cook at Pancacke Circus while recently installed panels provide a barrier between patrons for COVID-19 Thursday, June 18, 2020.Andrew Nixon / CapRadio
Yet Pancake Circus is more than just a kitschy spot for clown-car-sized carbs soaked in syrup. It’s always been a gathering place for community, and still is today. Ruebel and Burns both stressed repeatedly that the Circus is a welcoming place for “all walks of life.” Burns notes that it used to be packed, open 24 hours a day and serving up to 1,000 meals.
Poignantly, in these times when takeout is the first choice of many cautious diners, Pancake Circus pioneered to-go dining in Sacramento: Railroad workers would order meals to go, wrap them in duct tape and throw them up to conductors in passing trains, according to Burns.
“It was a stop on the political circuit … you might go in and Joe Serna, when he was mayor, might be eating with [Congressman] Bob Matsui or someone of that level,” Burns said. “I was in there recently and [artists] Greg Kondos and Wayne Thiebaud were eating there. It was a place for real inclusion and every strata of society can be found there.
”You could truly say it has touched the lives of every Sacramentan."
One Sacramento transplant whose life it has clearly affected is Becca Habegger, a TV reporter at ABC 10. Habegger is a Minnesota native who relocated to Land Park for work with her husband, Frank Bisek, three years ago.
As they explored their new neighborhood, the “steaks, seafood, salads” claim on the sign overlooking Broadway — at a place that was ostensibly devoted to pancakes — piqued their interest. And they were delighted to discover that the “explosion of circus memorabilia” also included a selection of “good classic diner food.”
Pancake Circus on Broadway in Sacramento.Andrew Nixon / CapRadio
The counter is closed due to COVID-19 restrictions, pictured Thrusday, June 18, 2020.Andrew Nixon / CapRadio
She says her relatives and friends now know that a trip to visit the family equals a meal at Pancake Circus at some point. Habegger’s favorite dish? It’s one that she concedes is weird, but that fits perfectly with the classic Americana menu: a pineapple-and-ham Hawaiian omelet.
On the first day that Pancake Circus reopened for dine-in service last month, Habegger and her husband were there, both sporting Circus-branded T-shirts (a variety of Pancake Circus merch can be found on the website Zazzle.com –including pandemic-era face masks). And she was relieved to see that they have been able to adapt and reopen.
“To love Pancake Circus is to love it for what it is, for what is has been and for what it represents,” Habegger said. “And I just think that Frank and I love it for all the right reasons.”
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