IHOP to serve free pancakes on National Pancake Day

March 8 isn’t the day to eat breakfast at home. It’s National Pancake Day, and IHOP restaurants around the country are giving away a free short stack of buttermilk pancakes to each diner, with the hope that she will leave a donation for a restaurant-designated charity. Lunch or dinner will work, too: The promotion lasts from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. (Click here for an IHOP location nearest you.)

IHOP created National Pancake Day in 2006, but despite the corporate inspiration, the holiday has helped communities raise $20 million for nonprofits. And what better food to celebrate? Whether they’re called pancakes, hotcakes or flapjacks, they’ve long been a part of our diet. They’re even included in one of the first New World cookbooks published in 1796, “American Cookery,” in which they’re called “Indian slap jacks.”