IHOP is a sit-down pancake house chain found across most of the United States. Its menu runs from stacked buttermilk pancakes to steakburgers and platters. Dine Brands Global owns the chain today, alongside Applebee’s Neighborhood Grill & Bar.
Blue A-frame rooflines marked its restaurants for decades and still appear on some of the chain’s older buildings. IHOP’s history, ownership and the shape of its US estate follow below.
IHOP History
Al and Jerry Lapin opened the first International House of Pancakes on Riverside Drive in Toluca Lake, Los Angeles, on July 7, 1958. The brothers built a sit-down room for families around stacked pancakes, not a diner counter or a quick coffee stop. The name advertised an international range of pancake styles from one kitchen. Franchising began almost at once, and fifty California locations followed within four years.
The company shortened its public name to IHOP in 1973, trimming the full International House of Pancakes down to the acronym diners already used. Blue A-frame rooflines became the chain’s signature, marking a restaurant from the road before a sign came into view. IHOP grew through franchising for the next three decades. Expansion spread east from its California base into most of the continental United States.
IHOP Corp. bought Applebee’s Neighborhood Grill & Bar in 2007, then renamed itself DineEquity and later Dine Brands Global. In 2018 the chain briefly became IHOb, the International House of Burgers, to promote a new steakburger line. Dine Brands counted 1,815 IHOP restaurants at the end of September 2026, most of them in the United States. Franchisees and area licensees run all but 17 of them.
IHOP Menus & Details
The sections below split the IHOP menu into four separate guides. Each one carries its own tables, running from the full price list to the allergen declarations item by item.
IHOP Menu Prices
Every section of the printed board, from pancakes and omelettes to steakburgers and the 55+ Menu, lists a calorie figure beside nearly every item. IHOP Menu Prices runs section by section in the same order as the in-restaurant board.
IHOP Secret Menu
Off-menu builds mix items already on the board into combinations the printed menu does not list by name. Regulars order them by name. IHOP Secret Menu covers the builds worth asking for and what goes into each one.
IHOP Fall Menu
Seasonal pancakes, coffees and limited-time items rotate onto the board for a few months each year. IHOP Fall Menu covers what is currently running and how it differs from the year-round board.
IHOP Allergen Menu
IHOP’s own Allergen Information handout lists what each item on the menu declares, from milk and gluten to the rarer fish and shellfish. IHOP Allergen Menu turns that handout into one item-by-item table.