This will sound like a rash statement, but...
http://www.originalpancakehouse.com/BEST PANCAKE HOUSE EVER.They're pretty new around these here parts (Cincinnati), but the chain originated in Portland, OR in 1953. It took me all day to figure out where I'd had a pancake, bacon and coffee
experience as fine (and as similar) as this one. The year was 1986, and it was the Walker Bros. Pancake House in Wilmette, IL, a place that always has a line out the door. Well, I'm browsing the above website, and guess what. Same damned company.
So of course I'm frantically checking for any locations in the Northeast. There's one now in Fort Lee, NJ (just across the Geo. Washington Bridge) and one "coming in 2013" to White Plains, NY.