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Annual pancake breakfast at St. John’s United Church set for potato festival

August 1, 2025   ·   0 Comments

By Brian Lockhart

It is an annual tradition to stop by St. John’s United Church in Alliston during the Alliston Potato Festival and enjoy a pancake breakfast.

This year’s breakfast will take place on Saturday, August 9, in the church parking lot from 7 a.m. to 11 a.m. The cost is $8 for all you can eat.

St John’s United Church will be celebrating its 50th anniversary hosting the Potato Pancake breakfast this year – that’s quite a milestone.

In the early days of hosting the breakfast, it was held it at the corner of Victoria and Church Street.

The thinking was that if they held it where they hold it now, nobody would come.

They ran extension cords from the hydro office, which is now Feehley Gastaldy Law office, over to the table to brew the coffee, and ran the pancake batter from the church kitchen up to the grills to cook the pancakes.

The church tried to keep the tickets prices affordable so that parents with kids would be able to enjoy the pancakes and have breakfast as a family.

To make things fun, if you showed up in your pyjamas, you could eat for free.

The breakfast was such a success that it was moved to its present location at the east parking lot at the church.

Although the Potato Festival was cancelled for two years due to the COVID pandemic, funds raised at the breakfast helped with the cost of installing an elevator in the church and bought pancake grills.

Over the years, the breakfast has helped support many worthwhile charities as well as giving back to the church.

Before COVID, the breakfast served between 1,200 to 1,400 people, that lined up around the block and down the street.

In recent years, over $19,7000 has been donated to local charities as well as some worldwide charities.

Through donations, the breakfast has supported such organizations as the Loaves and Fishes Growing project, Famine Relief in Horn of Africa, Habitat for Humanity, Stevenson Memorial Hospital Foundation, Matthews House, South Simcoe Learning Disability, Rotary Polio Eradication, S.H.I.F.T., Good Shepherd Food Bank, Canadian Mental Health Association, Krasmen Centre, and Grandmothers Embrace, as well as many other worthy causes.

It has also helped support the church with its operating expenses.

There is a birthday bonus this year: free Pancakes available to anyone born between August 8 to 11, 1975. You must show proof of your birth date.

The St. John’s United Church pancake breakfast provides a sense of community spirit that makes the event a special occasion.

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