The mystery of IHOb is solved.
IHOP said on Monday that it's temporarily changing its branding because the B stands for burgers.
It's only a marketing campaign. IHOP isn't changing its name. But the chain of breakfast diners took social media by storm last week with the cryptic announcement that it was flipping the lowercase "p" in its logo and making it a "b."
IHOP, of course, stands for International House of Pancakes. But IHOP — sorry, IHOb — wants to be known as a place to get lunch and dinner, not just breakfast and brunch. It's adding several burgers to its menu, including a Big Brunch burger with bacon, a fried egg and browned potato on top.
"We are definitely going to be IHOP," Darren Rebelez, president of IHOP, told CNNMoney. "But we want to convey that we are taking our burgers as seriously as our pancakes."
An IHOP in Hollywood is getting new IHOb signs, and some others might get the treatment. The new IHOb Twitter account even retweeted photos and video of a construction crew putting up the new sign in LA.
But Rebelez said the vast majority of the nearly 1,800 other locations will still go by IHOP.
So, to use another B-word, will there be a backlash?
Some people correctly predicted it would stand for burgers, but many others on Twitter and Facebook thought the B would stand for breakfast or bacon.
Others had more fun, speculating that the B stood for bitcoin or break dancing.
Chiquita even got in on the act, saying that the B should stand for bananas.
