You might think you know the must-order thing on the menu at Brownstone Pancake Factory based on the restaurant's name alone. But you know what they say about assuming. The pancakes are obviously a hit — they're super tall stacks, topped with ingredients you didn't even know you wanted on a breakfast item, like pretzels and Oreos — but it's the joint's cappuccino that deserves a place on your table.
Owner Bobby Bournias applies the same over-the-top mentality to his coffee drinks that he does with everything else he serves, starting with the mug itself. It's coated in Nutella that's just begging to be licked off, and pressed with crumbled wafers. The cappuccino gets a boost from some pumps of hazelnut syrup — because you didn't actually think Bournias would settle for plain java, did you? And what comes next is what makes heads turn: A chocolate fudge cupcake sits on the mug's rim next to a mountain of whipped cream that's topped with even more Nutella and powdered sugar.
Between this and Brownstone's famed hot chocolate, which one-ups the cappuccino with an entire slice of cake on top, Bournias and his baristas churn out around 40 drinks every weekend morning. One look at the restaurant's tagged pictures on Instagram proves the obsession, as does the fact that certain customers love the cappuccino so much, they've asked for it to-go. Bournias has yet to devise a system for that — no one wants to lick Nutella off a Styrofoam cup, anyway. So until he does, you'll need to wait for a table with all the other caffeine fiends. We promise it's worth it.
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