Don't use 🥞(pancakes emoji) as menu icon · community · Discussion #203497

typed-sigterm · GitHub

14 min read Original article ↗
Jul 30, 2026

· 82 comments · 67 replies

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lol it's unacceptable to use 🥞 as menu icon. Your designers / UX engineers must have tons of words to say about accessibility, semantic meaning, cross platform compatability. here is no tooltip indicating that this is an Easter egg from Stacked PR.

BTW Waffle is better than pancakes 🧇🧇
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I get it's a little fun to celebrate but they really should have added an announcement or note in the menu itself to connect the dots a little. There is no connection between the icon and the announcement unless you had been following the feature. Hell, even a hover state note over it would be a good idea

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1 reply

@MadhuSuresh333

Yeah, I was shocked when I saw this. AI slop?
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2 replies

@IMOitself

for me, its the most human thing ive ever seen. dont let anyone take ur whimsy :D

@ganlvtech

Previously it was normal, a 3-bar menu icon. I don't know if it was done on purpose?
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7 replies

@jtdevos

Did you really just log on to tell the whole world you're not much fun to be around?

@inazaroff-clgx

Should have been Waffles instead?

Waffles are for piling toppings.
Pancakes are for stacking. 🤤

@wjlee2020

my wife's making pancakes as we speak

@tadhglewis

I am not a fan. I'm not a fan of fun too 🙄

@inventor7777

image

Obligatory repost
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0 replies

Opening a Severity-1 ticket immediately. Our SLA doesn't cover unprovoked pancake attacks.

Christ, just live a little; let Github announce that they've released Stacked Pull Requests with a delicious UI change
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0 replies

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0 replies

Here's AI generated reasons:
image
son
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3 replies

@diquoks

that's hilarious
image

@Nekidev

@srl295

  • hamburger
  • kebab

no irony here.

I thought something had been compromised when I saw this. It's not cute.
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11 replies

@mmseng

We should appreciate the rare times we get stuff like this because we otherwise never do

That's just patently false. There are plenty of platforms and sources of entertainment that aren't Github, and they are all much better suited to task. This is not what Github is for. You don't eat the leaves off the bushes in a yard. The bush's purpose is not to feed you, and there's much better sources of nutrients.

@supervoidcoder

We should appreciate the rare times we get stuff like this because we otherwise never do

That's just patently false. There are plenty of platforms and sources of entertainment that aren't Github, and they are all much better suited to task. This is not what Github is for. You don't eat the leaves off the bushes in a yard. The bush's purpose is not to feed you, and there's much better sources of nutrients.

The pancakes aren't for entertainment, they're for comfort. Like having something you acknowledge is there and it just makes you feel a little more fun even though you're doing actual work. Because who in their right mind would think staring at an emoji is a source of entertainment?

@mmseng

If you think the pancakes are comfortable sure. Other's may find it stressful. You could customize any page on the internet to feel more comfortable to you using userscripts or whatever without forcing your comfort preferences (or in this case the whims of the company) onto others.

Also, the pancakes were literally not for comfort, they were a calculated distraction for advertising purposes.

@MrRubberDucky

maybe we all had personalized pancakes then since mine were quite friendly.

@supervoidcoder

maybe we all had personalized pancakes then since mine were quite friendly.

Every copy of pancakes is personalized

Chill....Its just a easter egg to help promote the introduction of stacked PR's.
"They’re basically treating it as a little Easter egg for the launch “stacked” PRs as a stack of pancakes"
Link:
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3 replies

@rollerozxa

Honestly it would have been less confusing if upon hovering the icon it would say something to that regard as to why it suddenly changed to that. With GitHub's gradual degradation in quality all it makes it look like is their icon font malfunctioning.

@TopProjectsCreator

image Whats your take on stacked PR's?

@snowballrandom

Thought the kids played a joke on me at first, reloaded then gone...I think i liked the pancake better!
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0 replies

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1 reply

@6uan

Completely unacceptable. Utter lack of professionalism. 🥞
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1 reply

@fjij

To those who "thumbs downed" me:

...

...

...

...

🥞

🤪

I was wondering why is there a goomba on my github.
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0 replies

It is just a stack of pancakes. What do you mean with unprofessional? It's maybe a daily easter egg. Not a big issue. 😂 (I liked it)
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1 reply

@onesneakymofo

Down with the Waffle Lovers! Pancake Pals rise up!
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1 reply

@paul-wade

Should be marked as the answer.
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0 replies

Thought one of my extensions got hijacked because of this terrible design choice, especially because I couldn't reproduce it when logged out in any other browser. Every silly change like this shows that GitHub is becoming less of a reasonable platform for serious work. Not even any alt text or link to why this is happening.

I'm not saying you can't have some whimsy, but for the sake of user sanity do it better, and at the very least be clear. It's not even any obvious holiday, and Shrove Tuesday (pancake day) is Feb 9 of next year. Designers have missed every possible mark, and it's not acceptable to repeat this.

Today's holidays (July 30), which are unrelated to the current icon:

  • International Day of Friendship
  • National Cheesecake Day
  • National Whistleblower Appreciation Day.

Remove it, and don't ever put it back as it was. Give us a toggle, or at least alt-text to indicate that it's happening intentionally. Put a new entry in the menu, add a second menu button, I don't care, just do literally anything else than this.

For an easy example, when there's a holiday on YouTube, the icon changes, and clicking it takes you to a search of the current holiday. Why in the blistering heck is there NOT A SINGLE LINK to stacked pull request ANYWHERE but a random reply in this discussion? I love that we're getting a feature GitLab has had for more than a year, but I shouldn't have to dig this deep or wonder why the menu icon changed. Give me a notification or something, or at least an email.

Click my profile to see that I've actually used this platform for 14 years. I'm not just whining to whine or add noise. This sucks, and it genuinely feels bad that I had to write this.
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3 replies

@inventor7777

So your entire workflow and trust broke because one singular icon got changed as a small Easter egg? Are you serious?

@Technetium1

This has nothing to do with my workflow other than stopping it to figure out what happened. Yes it temporarily breaks trust, because I don't use a completely vanilla browser. As said above, I was not able to immediately reproduce the icon in other browsers. That inconsistency raised more red flags.

Click my username and look at what I maintain and volunteer for. I am obligated to stay on top of malware on behalf of the others who I'm responsible for. If I have a malware problem, then so do at least tens of thousands of people who I package for, and I do take it very seriously. I don't ignore questionable things or take chances.

@inventor7777

In that scenario it does make sense, I'll admit. So, I apologize.

I think a simple tooltip from GitHub would have solved this whole saga much better 😅

Hamburger menu for vegetarians..
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1 reply

@crazymonkyyy

// ==UserScript==
// @name         Fix GitHub Pancake Menu Button
// @namespace    http://tampermonkey.net/
// @version      2026-07-31
// @description  try to take over the world!
// @author       Ganlv
// @match        https://github.com/*
// @icon         http://github.com/favicon.ico
// @grant        GM_addStyle
// @run-at       document-start
// ==/UserScript==

(function() {
    'use strict';

    GM_addStyle(`
[class*="GlobalNavMenuToggle-module"] {
    font-size: 0 !important;
    background: url('data:image/svg+xml,<svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewBox="0 0 16 16" fill="%2359636e"><path d="M1 2.75A.75.75 0 0 1 1.75 2h12.5a.75.75 0 0 1 0 1.5H1.75A.75.75 0 0 1 1 2.75Zm0 5A.75.75 0 0 1 1.75 7h12.5a.75.75 0 0 1 0 1.5H1.75A.75.75 0 0 1 1 7.75ZM1.75 12h12.5a.75.75 0 0 1 0 1.5H1.75a.75.75 0 0 1 0-1.5Z"></path></svg>');
}
`);
})();
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0 replies

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0 replies

Sure it should probably have had a link to info on Stacked PRs when clicking the pancake menu...

I'm sorry but but wow, imagine being so boring you complain about this 😴 👎

Petition to bring back the 🥞
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1 reply

@raphodn

Can we get a secret pancake mode that will make all these things be pancakes forever? 🥞
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0 replies

Thank god it's already back to hamburger now
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0 replies

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0 replies

For those who want to bring it back (tampermonkey userscript):

preview 
// ==UserScript==
// @name         GitHub Bring Back Pancakes 🥞
// @namespace    https://github.com/wyf9
// @version      1.0
// @description  Bring back GitHub's Stacked PR pancake menu.
// @author       wyf9 + ChatGPT
// @match        https://github.com/*
// @grant        none
// @run-at       document-idle
// ==/UserScript==

(() => {
    "use strict";

    function patch() {
        const svg = document.querySelector(
            'button[aria-haspopup="dialog"] svg.octicon-three-bars'
        );

        if (!svg || svg.dataset.pancaked) {
            return;
        }

        svg.dataset.pancaked = "1";

        const path = svg.querySelector("path");
        if (path) {
            path.style.display = "none";
        }

        svg.setAttribute("viewBox", "0 0 16 16");
        svg.style.overflow = "visible";

        const text = document.createElementNS(
            "http://www.w3.org/2000/svg",
            "text"
        );

        text.textContent = "🥞";

        text.setAttribute("x", "8");
        text.setAttribute("y", "9.8");
        text.setAttribute("text-anchor", "middle");

        text.setAttribute("font-size", "15px");

        text.setAttribute("style", `
            user-select:none;
            dominant-baseline:middle;
        `);

        svg.appendChild(text);
    }

    patch();

    new MutationObserver(patch).observe(document.body, {
        subtree: true,
        childList: true,
    });
})();
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0 replies

Boo, they reverted it. No fun allowed on my h*cking professional coding platform for epic coders!!!
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9 replies

@supervoidcoder

Grow up. You write like a schoolyard bully and have no concept of what you're arguing for. Sure, turning a button into a pancake for a few hours is not a big deal, obviously. It's hard to blame the younger generation for not seeing the systemic rot this is representative of when they grew up renting everything they've ever used, and where companies violating their users has become the norm.

Maybe you should consider that you are the one that should grow up. Growing up is not about being a depressed, stoic, soulless edgelord just because you're all "grown up". In fact, it should be quite the opposite. It should be emotionally maturing and realizing that you're not really human if you're nothing more than an asset for a corporate company where your entire existence is a number in a sheet of statistics. Not because humans should be like that, but because you decided you want to. You have no concept of humanity, as if your life is just about making money. Your writing is so vague and soulless I genuinely can't tell which side are you on. I'm against companies that make everything into a SaaS, but after all, it is just the world we live in. You can't truly live in a society where there's anything you truly own, because in the end, everything is a social construct, and everything you've ever done belongs to a social construct. Why? Because we aren't hunter-gatherers anymore. You want to make yourself be seen as so mature and intelligent even though you're forgetting that regardless of how old you are right now, everyone currently alive on this blue marble has lived in the same society that has stayed structured in a way we can relate to thousands of years back throughout the course of written human history. The government can always condemn your property, your ISP can always cut your internet, your phone's manufacturer can always brick your device, GitHub can always ban your account, and every food item you buy is at the mercy of the company that hired the workers to stock the shelves, all of which rely on the company to get a livable wage and continue the cycle. We don't own anything because we never did. There are many signs of end-user exploitation everywhere. SaaS's plague the internet like a disgusting pandemic. Corporate borderline scams and overpriced products are just a rite of passage in the modern world. So, when you have to live in a world where everything is born from a desire for money, anything that's otherwise cheerful, in this case, the pancake emoji, should be something to cherish and enjoy, even if it is still just another marketing stunt or PR stunt. It's something to just be happy about without complaining as if it's dropping your stock and burning your office. You're not any different than us "younger people", and using your lack of gratefulness for any sort of happiness in your life shows that deep down, you're the one that needs to grow up. @mmseng

@mmseng

Calling me an immature edgelord with baggage and then posting all that is pretty rich.

@supervoidcoder

Calling me an immature edgelord with baggage and then posting all that is pretty rich.

Look at you calling it "pretty rich" while not addressing any of the points I explained. I thought people learned to read in school, but I must have been mistaken. Apologies!

@mmseng

@MrRubberDucky

truly the peak of professionalism, arguing in github discussions... xd

I get why you wanted to remove 🥞. But it would have been fun to add it to stacked PR's for a little while.
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0 replies

Honestly, I kinda liked it, can we get an option to re-enable it? I miss it now, made me giggle a bit every time :(
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0 replies

We all know Github went down today because they took the pancake away. Bring back the pancake Github. Bring back peace and stability.
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0 replies