A new IHOP pancake depot is soon to open in Manhattan's East Village, the downtown epicenter of NYU kids and other tight-jeaned menaces. Management is expecting such a deluge of late-night customers streaming in from the bar-heavy neighborhood that they've hired security.

Yes, someone will man the door of the 14th Street eatery every day from 11p.m. to 7a.m., because waitstaff and managers and other employees do not want to have to deal with mad drunk heads acting foolish in the middle of the damn night. And I don't blame them! Those that have been to places like Odessa on Avenue A post bar-close know that the late-night diner scene is an absolute horror show. With a security guy at the door, though, the truly drunk and otherwise irksome can be bounced away back to their dorms or junkquirk apartments. See ya, jerks!

But let's not get too celebratory. I mean, we're talking about a damn IHOP, a "hipster IHOP" as dubbed by the New York Post, in the East Village, a neighborhood full of independently owned regular New York diners. So that even that most rudimentary yet iconic of city establishments is being rivaled by a big-plate franchise is yet another weary indicator that, duh, the times they are a'getting worse. Look, IHOP is delicious! But IHOP is a place you drive to in the shabbier corners of a suburb where there are no other options. IHOP is not the place you go to in diner-rich Manhattan. I don't care how good their Pigs in Blankets are. (They are very, very good.) It's an outrage! Yet another sad, silly outrage.

Oh well. It's good at least that the management has taken preemptive measures to ensure their safety and sanity, and the sanctity of the Boysenberry syrup. It's a wise move. Though, probably the minute the first line forms outside of an IHOP on 14th Street the whole city will fall into the sea and float away in pieces, so it doesn't really matter anyway. [NYP, image via microwavedboy/Flickr]