IHOP is packing up its West Babylon pancake house and moving less than half a mile down Montauk Highway, trading its current spot at 651 Montauk Hwy for a bigger building at 1035 Montauk Hwy that has cycled through three different restaurant concepts since 2014. The planned restaurant will seat 198 guests inside a 5,560-square-foot building, a sizable jump in capacity for the franchisee-operated chain.
The relocation plan is detailed in reporting by Newsday, which reports that an IHOP representative said the new site simply offers more room for guests to dine in. The representative could not confirm an opening date, according to the same account. The move puts the new location inside the Great South Bay Shopping Center, a 470,000-square-foot retail complex along Montauk Highway anchored by national tenants including LA Fitness, ALDI, Marshalls, Old Navy, Five Below, DSW, and Burlington, according to RIPCO Real Estate.
The address has seen plenty of turnover. Red Robin opened its first Suffolk County restaurant there in July 2014, per the Newsday report. Leo Chen then opened Wagyu Steakhouse at the location in April 2023, specializing in premium Japanese A5 wagyu beef, before turning the concept into 88 Burger in 2024 after burgers outsold everything else on the menu, according to Newsday's earlier coverage of the burger spot's launch. 88 Burger has since closed, though the exact shutdown date remains unclear per the same reporting.
Permits, Seating, and a Quiet Applicant
Getting to 198 seats required clearing a specific local hurdle. Under Babylon Town Code Chapter 213, any restaurant or bar seeking to operate with more than 16 seats must obtain a special exception permit from the Town Planning Board in addition to standard building permits, a framework documented in a Town of Babylon planning document. A bar/restaurant special exception permit application was submitted to the town on August 13, 2026, and the Town of Babylon Planning Board approved the special exception on October 5, both per Ryan Bonner. The IHOP applicant is seeking interior alterations for the 198-seat restaurant and will need a building permit for that work, also per Bonner.
At a public hearing on September 28, 2026, applicant representatives confirmed that the change of tenancy required no exterior or interior structural alterations to the existing building, according to Citizen Portal. Joseph Conti is listed as the applicant on the project but did not respond to the Newsday reporter's requests for comment, the outlet notes.
A Busy Corridor, and a Neighbor's Canceled Project
The new site sits along a stretch of Montauk Highway (Route 27A) that sees daily vehicular traffic averaging more than 23,000 cars, according to figures from RIPCO Real Estate. That kind of visibility hasn't guaranteed smooth sailing for every tenant in the shopping center, though. Chick-fil-A officially canceled its long-planned project to build a 5,214-square-foot, 114-seat drive-thru restaurant in the same Great South Bay Shopping Center in September 2026, after more than three years of town approvals and timeline extensions, Newsday reported separately.
IHOP's current West Babylon location sits at the corner of 651 Montauk Highway and Albermarle Avenue, serving surrounding communities including Lindenhurst, North Babylon, and West Islip, according to the chain's own restaurant listing. What becomes of that building once the relocation is complete has not been addressed in available reporting.
Part of a Bigger Pancake Push
The relocation lands as IHOP's corporate parent touts momentum nationally. Dine Brands Global Inc., headquartered in Pasadena, California, is the parent company of IHOP, Applebee's Neighborhood Grill + Bar, and Fuzzy's Taco Shop, operating more than 3,500 total franchised and corporate-owned restaurants worldwide, according to the company's own investor materials. IHOP itself has more than 1,700 locations internationally, including 20 on Long Island, per Newsday's report.
Dine Brands Global reported in August 2026 that IHOP achieved a 1.5% year-over-year increase in domestic same-restaurant sales during the second quarter, marking three consecutive quarters of industry outperformance in sales and guest traffic, with off-premise orders accounting for 20.2% of total sales, according to a company announcement carried by Business Wire. The chain has also been experimenting with new formats elsewhere, launching its first U.S. dual-branded Applebee's and IHOP location in Seguin, Texas, in February 2025, allowing guests to order from both brand menus under one roof, per the same Business Wire release. For West Babylon diners, the more immediate change will simply be a short drive to a bigger dining room — once an opening date is finally set.
