IHOP becomes IHOb, gets pancaked on social media

Last week, IHOP shook up social media by announcing it would change its name to "IHOb," which, let's face it, doesn't scan as well as "IHOP."

Although there were multiple guesses as to what the "b" stood for — and although there's already an IHOB, it just happens to be in India — the most common guess was that the "b" stood for "breakfast." After all, the International House of Pancakes serves more than pancakes.

That was our guess, too, and we were wrong. Our second guess was "International House of Biscuits" because biscuits are suddenly trendy even though they've been around for years. But, as you likely know by now, IHOP — er, IHOb — revealed Monday morning that the new name is "International House of Burgers."

"Burgers so burgerin’ good, we changed our name to IHOb. For burgers," says the bio on the new IHOb Twitter page. (it is probably a good thing that it was International House of Pancakes and not International Shack of Pancakes.)

IHOb has unleashed a menu of more than a half-dozen "steakburgers," including the double-patty Mega Monster and the Big Brunch (hickory-smoked bacon, fried egg,* crispy browned potato, American cheese and our signature IHOP® sauce — wait, not IHOB® sauce? And no pancakes for buns? Or at least waffles?).

Naturally, Twitter had a field day with this. Including a couple of fast-food burger chains known for their social-media snark.

DFW restaurants also got into the act.

So did celebrities, such as model Chrissy Teigen.

And then there are the plain surreal reactions.

But IHOb has its defenders, including Ben Rogers of the "Ben & Skin" show on 105.3 The Fan. (Rogers had a lot to say on this topic.)

It is a bit of marketing genius — when's the last time anyone talked this much about IHOP? — but when a lot of the reaction was "I've never gone to IHOP for a burger," it seems that the whole point of this — IHOP is trying to get you to go there for a burger — was falling on deaf ears.

Ultimately, we think the last word should belong to this little girl, who was way ahead of everyone with her reaction last week.

This story was originally published June 11, 2018 at 3:31 PM with the headline "IHOP becomes IHOb, gets pancaked on social media."