We gorged ourselves on IHOP's All You Can Eat Pancakes and found a huge problem with the promotion

Hollis Johnson

We at Business Insider love a good bargain - especially when it comes to free food.

So when we heard about IHOP's All You Can Eat pancake promotion, we immediately began dreaming of syrupy stacks.

Little did we know, our flapjack fantasy would fall into pancake perdition.

Here's what it's like to spend five hours in a Manhattan IHOP - and why this delicious deal may not be as sweet as it seems.