Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, March 18, 1992 TAG: 9203170273
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: E-2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By HILARY APPELMAN ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: ANGELICA, N.Y. LENGTH: Medium
The family-run Maple Tree Inn is unshuttered and the tables wiped down for another all-too-brief pancake season. On a busy day, a line of pancake-craving customers spills out the door and winds more than 100 feet down to the road.
Inside, steam rises from an open-air grill where flapjacks are poured and flipped 27 at a time. Hamburgers and sandwiches are on the menu, but pancakes made from a secret recipe and served any time of day with maple syrup from 5,000 trees on their land are the first order of business.
Ten months out of the year, Ronald and Virginia Cartwright run an out-of-the-way, 1,700-acre dairy farm nine miles north of Angelica. But when the maple sap runs from mid-February to mid-April, their inn gets going again.
Aside from the dark golden buckwheat pancakes - all you can eat for $4 - are maple milkshakes and sundaes.
An average of 500 customers show up each day, Cartwright said, and many make the hour-plus trip from Rochester and Buffalo, 50 miles to the north.
The restaurant seated just 15 people when it opened in 1963 but has since expanded to hold 190 in two pine-paneled dining rooms.
"This is my third trip this year, and there'll be five or six more," said Van E. Deschler, a retired dairy farmer from Portville, 40 miles to the south.
"We came last year and we're back this year because it was so good," said Joanne Scherrer, who drove nearly two hours from Niagara Falls with her husband.
The Cartwright family has been making maple syrup since the 1850s.
by CNB