Hunter Myers is still rocking his “breakfast socks.” Those are the socks with pictures of bacon and eggs or pancakes and waffles on them that he wears to work at The Pancake Shop.
“I have a different pair for every day,” Myers says. “I order them online.”
His mother bought him his first pair — gray socks with fried eggs and bacon design — when he bought the iconic diner at 4838 Summer Avenue on March 1, 2022.
“That was her original idea when I got the place. She found me a pair of breakfast socks. And that has been her thing ever since. I continue to buy them ‘cause I like them.”
Since he bought the restaurant, which opened in 1958, Myers has changed the hours of operation. But he’s tried to keep its same vibe and look. Foodwise, the only thing he did was upgrade to a better quality sausage link, Myers says. “Otherwise, the bacon, the sausage patties, the ham, the pancakes, the hash browns, the biscuits, everything is the same.”
And, he adds, “All the same recipes. All the same purveyors get us products to make said recipes. Nothing changed. I wanted to leave it as original as I possibly could.”
Aesthetically, he says, “what you hear from the younger generation nowadays is that the vibe is ‘immaculate.’” Young people on social media “just love the buzz of the place. The way it looks. The iconic Memphis pictures.”
Myers also painted the walls. “I thought that the walls were kind of a high yellow,” he says, but he discovered they were actually white. “They had turned yellow through the years of cigarette smoking inside. Which now has, obviously, been outlawed.”
They were restored to their original color with one coat of paint. “I put all the decorations back that were there,” he says. “I just came in and gave it a breath of fresh air.”
The Pancake Shop is “the melting pot of Memphis restaurants,” Myers says. “We have an extremely diverse customer base. Everybody loves a good American breakfast, but The Pancake Shop is just that spot where everybody feels welcome.”
Myers changed The Pancake Shop’s hours of operation out of necessity. It was open 24 hours a day for years. “When I bought it they were closing between 8 and 9 at night. They were trying to stay open for a dinner rush that really never came. So, for seven months after I bought it, I left the same hours that it was.” But not many people were coming in later in the day. “I couldn’t get enough momentum to make it worthwhile.”
The Pancake Shop is now open 6 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. every day except Wednesday, the one day it’s closed.
In addition to changing the hours and the sausage links, Myers himself has changed since buying The Pancake Shop: he’s lost 60 pounds.
That’s despite the ease with which one picks up weight as a restaurant owner, he says. “That happens. You’re around it and it’s tough. It’s tough not to smell that French toast cooking and those delicious pancakes. You own the place. You can go back there and make whatever you want.”
Myers now looks like he could be the older brother of his 23-year-old son Jack, the restaurant’s general manager. And through social media, Jack has gotten the next generation to start eating at The Pancake Shop.
As for future plans, Myers says, “I would like to open up another Pancake Shop in another area of town. Bring it closer to people.”
And then there’s that famous red-and-white sign on the street out front. “A lot of people I talk to say they’ve been in Memphis their whole life and they haven’t seen that sign,” he says. So Myers is thinking about “getting a more vibrant sign, or a bigger one people can see from the street.” But, he adds, “I promise if that ever happens, I will take that iconic sign that’s been out there for decades and decades and clean it up and make it a permanent fixture inside The Pancake Shop.”
