Centerville Sets World Record: Iowa Time Machine September 25, 2021

Iowa Time Machine ⏰: On September 25, 2021, Centerville turned a familiar small-town breakfast into a world-record moment. With griddles working, volunteers flipping, and hungry visitors lining up, the community served 14,280 pancakes in a single event, surpassing the Guinness World Records benchmark of 13,000.

Centerville’s Pancake Day had deep local roots long before anyone counted pancakes for a world record. The celebration began in the late 1940s, when manufacturers in and around Centerville offered free pancakes to thank their employees. As the local industrial landscape changed, residents carried the gathering forward and transformed it into a community festival. By the twenty-first century, Pancake Day had become a fixture of the town’s calendar, centered on downtown Centerville.

The record attempt on Saturday, September 25, came during Centerville’s 72nd annual Pancake Day. From 9 a.m. until 1 p.m., roughly 100 volunteers worked to meet Guinness requirements while serving the public. Each pancake had to measure at least five inches across and no more than one centimeter thick.

Hy-Vee donated 2,400 pounds of pancake mix and helped Centerville pursue the record, which the company had set only three months earlier in Blue Springs, Missouri. When the final count reached 14,280, Centerville had exceeded the previous mark by 1,280 pancakes. #Iowa #OTD #History #Breakfast #Pancakes