Flapjack fever at Lions Club breakfast

LIHUE — We come from where they serve the biggest pancake breakfasts in the world, said Lenore Moore of Calgary, Canada, Sunday at the Elsie Wilcox Elementary School cafeteria.

“Larry and I come from the home of the Calgary Stampede where there are lines of people waiting to eat pancakes,” Lenore said. “There is a place in the Chinook Mall where they serve up 20,000 pancake breakfasts.”

The Moore’s were enjoying the East Kauai Lions Pancake Breakfast through the invitation of Lion Memory Robinson who met them at the Waimea craft fair.

“This is pretty good,” Lenore said. “Now, what can we do on a rainy Sunday?”

The rain and nip from the passing weather front enhanced the serving of miso soup prepared by Lion Harvey and Sandy Kinoshita.

“They can’t keep up with the coffee, so I got soup, instead,” said Shari Amimoto.

Lion Chris Lum Lee of the East Manoa Lions Club was among the steady stream of diners who had the option of dining in or taking orders to-go.

“I volunteered to help with the Hawaii Kai Lions for their pancake breakfast, so I thought I would get a feel for this,” Lee said. “They serve about 4,000 meals, so this one with about 1,600 meals gets me warmed up.”

Lion Stephen Fujii, tallying the counts of arriving diners with Lion Roy Tanaka, said the E.K. Lions served up 567 dine-in meals and 837 to-go orders with the largest surge of more than 400 people arriving between 8 and 8:30 a.m.

Proceeds from the annual breakfast help the East Kauai Lions Club with its many community service projects, and part of the sharing was demonstrated Sunday when Jim Whitfield, president of the E.K. Lions, was joined by Second District Governor Kelvin Moniz in presenting Laurie Yoshida, chair of the Kauai High School Project Grad, with a check for $500.

“Thank you for supporting the Lions in these types of events,” Yoshida said. “Your support for these events enable the Lions to help other groups such as ours.”