After being diagnosed with egg and dairy allergies in 2014, Brinkley Erb found that breakfast was the hardest meal for her to eat. 

“A lot of breakfast foods have eggs and dairy,” Erb, 24, said. “I was having smoothies and fruit, but that was kind of limiting. That piqued my interest in healthy food and getting creative about cooking food for myself.”

Near the end of 2020, Erb woke up with a craving for pancakes, so she began testing recipes that aligned with her diet.

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“All of 2021, I was eating this pancake recipe I had discovered and loving it and cooking it for my roommates,” she said. “It just became kind of a thing.”

Then Erb noticed someone freezing an Uncrustables sandwich, and she had a lightbulb moment.

“I realized you can freeze anything,” she said. “I was sick of cooking and cleaning every morning, and the pancakes were even more delicious when you toasted them because they were crispy on the outside.”

At the time, Erb was living in Florida and teaching yoga, so she began selling pancakes to her clients.

“One client brought me bananas from her banana tree in her yard, and they were a hit,” she said.

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Erb decided she was on to something with her plant-based pancake business, and after coming back to Memphis, she got to work on getting a business license. She launched Good Flippin’ Pancakes in 2022 alongside her sister, Connell Erb, and her stepfather, Tom Sikes.

“Right now, we’re focusing on the original flavor, which is bananas, oats, cinnamon and salt,” Erb said, noting that they also make a blueberry flavor. “We would like to add some more flavors sometime soon, but we’ve been trying to expand into more stores and get our logistics down first.”

Erb said the pancakes are naturally sweetened by the banana. However, if customers want to try them with syrup, she recommends 100% natural maple syrup. She also likes to top them with honey, peanut or other nut butters.

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“(The pancakes are) also really good with ice cream with chocolate on top as a not-as-healthy, dessert-type food,” she said.

Good Flippin’ Pancakes are currently sold in High Point Grocery, South Point Grocery, Big River Market, Grind City Grocer, Cordelia’s Market and Curb Market at Crosstown Concourse. They are also available in the freezer at the Memphis Kitchen Co-Op, where the pancakes are made.

“Being Downtown with so many people on the move, Brinkley’s pancakes quickly became a favorite at Grind City Grocer,” said Erin Ortasic, owner of Grind City Grocer. “We try to accommodate all diets, and our customers appreciate that these pancakes are super allergy-friendly and really delicious.”

One thing Erb wants to communicate is that frozen food doesn’t have to be unhealthy. She explained that the reason her product can only have four ingredients and be made with real bananas is because it is then frozen, which is the most natural preservative.

“Eating healthier or eating well is inconvenient enough as it is, and we want to make that more accessible for people,” she said. “We’re never going to put anything in our products that is not nourishing or intentional ingredients. That’s not something I would eat myself, and I wouldn’t put it out in the world.”

The Good Flippin’ Pancakes team makes around 100 bags per week, each containing eight pancakes. Erb hopes to branch out to neighboring cities and eventually go regional and national with the brand.

“The dream for me would be to be a national, well-known grocery store brand,” she said. “I have not seen any pancake product in any market that is plant-based and contains no gluten-containing ingredients, no added sugar and no added flour.”