5,400 eggs a week? Popular Fresno breakfast restaurant opens new Clovis location
Cinnamon roll pancakes have arrived in Clovis.
Fresno-based Batter Up Pancakes has opened another location cooking up its top-selling pancakes, chile verde omelets and everything else on its giant menu. This restaurant is in Clovis, at the southwest corner of Herndon and Fowler avenues.
The original location at Cedar and Nees avenues is staying open.
Batter Up has been around since 2009, getting so packed on weekends that some customers wait two hours for a table. And it’s no surprise, given that the restaurant goes through 5,400 eggs a week.
After noticing many of their customers are from Clovis, the owners decided to open a location there. (Technically, the Clovis location is the third, as Batter Up had a restaurant on Figarden Drive for a time before it closed due to lack of business.)
Earlier this week, Carol and Gary Garant of Tollhouse made the drive to the new location for a chile verde omelet and chicken-fried steak.
“We like the other one. It’s just always so busy,” Carol Garant said. “I’m just thrilled they opened up this one.”
The business will celebrate its grand opening Monday.
Batter Up Pancakes
Cristina Colla and her parents, Jeff and Becci Colla, founded Batter Up Pancakes. The little boy holding the spatula in the baseball-themed logo is Cristina’s son Benson.
He was 17 months old when the restaurant started. Now he’s 15, and 6 feet, 2 inches tall (and into tennis, not baseball, like his uncle Mike who inspired the theme).
The elder Collas will continue to run the Cedar and Nees location.
And the Clovis location? “This is my little baby,” said Cristina Colla.
The new restaurant opened Friday, in a former Dickey’s Barbecue Pit restaurant. It looks majorly different: Walls were added and knocked down, doors moved, and new counter tops, paint, tile and tables were added.
The menu
The massive four-page menu is pretty much the same.
The decadent pancakes are still the star of the show, with options like Oreo, Nikke’s cookie dough — and of course the popular Tessa Cate’s cinnamon roll pancake. (The latter two are named after Cristina’s daughters.)
The cinnamon roll version is a giant pancake with swirls of what they call “gak,” a blend of brown sugar, oats and cinnamon, along with cream cheese frosting.
You can get protein and whole grain pancakes. And then there’s the traditional old fashioned batter, made Jeff Colla’s favorite way, with “straight up buttermilk.”
“I’m a pancake guy; that’s why we started,” he said. “This is exactly how I would cook at home.”
There are also eggs, breakfast burritos and tacos, chilaquiles, vegan options and lunch items such as sandwiches on the menu.
Batter Up is one of the more pricey breakfast spots around town, with one (albeit very large) specialty pancake starting at $13.99. Prices top out at $22.99 for the meat lovers omelet with four kinds of meat.
The people
The family started in the food business when they owned Great Harvest Bread Company in Fresno before selling it.
That’s where they discovered Gabby Ayala, an employee who followed them to Batter Up and has worked with the family for 17 years.
She’s a baker and prepper, or as Colla says, “she’s just called Queen.” They created a room for her in the new location to make everything from the gak to loaves of cinnamon bread that are sliced and made into the cinnamon roll French toast.
The popular pork chile verde omelet and burrito use her personal chile verde recipe.
Not a lot has changed in the more than a decade they’ve been running the restaurant, notes Jeff Colla — except obviously the price of eggs.
“It’s actually a joy because of the people you meet,” he said. “Sometimes I sit down and have breakfast with them.”
His daughter is quick to chime in that introverts who just want to eat a meal in peace will fit in here, too.
“I’m not kidding when I tell you have the best customers,” she said.
Details: Batter Up Pancakes second location is at 1610 Herndon Ave., suite 106. Hours: 6:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. weekdays, 6:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. weekends. It does not take reservations, though you can join a wait list via its website. 559-570-0488.
