PRINCETON -- PJ's Pancake House, the popular breakfast spot that has been serving up pancakes in Princeton since 1962, is expanding, opening three more restaurants later this year.

The new locations will be in Kingston, Ewing and Robbinsville.

The owners, brothers John and Tino Procaccini and their business partner, Zissis Pappas, first took over PJ's in 2011 as the operating partners. Martin Tuchman, whose family owned it for 39 years, remains a silent partner.

By popular demand, the group opened its first satellite location in West Windsor in 2013.

"PJ's is an institution so when we took over in 2011, it was a challenge for us to build it, but we did," John Procaccini said. "Then we said, 'If another one of these works, it's not just necessarily because it's an institution, but it's the actual concept."

He says that other than the typical Jersey diner and IHOP, there's no other pancake houses in the area.

"West Windsor was the test and it exceeded our expectations and I think we're ready to do this big time," he said. "We figured if we're going to do this, we might as well expand rapidly to really saturate the market."

The first one is expected to open in early April in what was the Main Street Cafe in Kingston. The cafe, a fixture in town for 32 years, closed in November, but is being renovated and rebranded as PJ's Pancake House & Bakery.

Breakfast, lunch and dinner will be served and an on-site bakery will offer assorted pastries and breads and wedding and special-occasion cakes.

"Main Street was a bakery but most importantly for us, with all of our locations, we want to be our own bakery and furnish all of our stores with our own product," Procaccini said.

That location will be followed by the opening of a PJ's Pancake House & Tavern in Ewing in late May or early June. They are moving into what was Cafe Mulino on the corner of Bear Tavern and Mountainside roads.

The last one, another PJ's Pancake House & Tavern, will open on Main Street in Robbinsville. A September opening is planned.

Both the Ewing and Robbinsville locations will serve alcohol and offer a tavern menu with burgers, meatloaf, fish and chips and other diner classics.

"We felt that with every one of them, even though the core business is going to be a pancake house restaurant, the dinner demographic is what needed to be different," Procaccini said.

Gretalia Hospitality Group, which also owns Osteria Procaccini, Trattoria Procaccini, Porta Via and Dolceria, is venturing down to Orlando, Florida, to open their fourth Osteria Procaccini. Procaccini says the area is home to many transplants from the Northeast who crave good, authentic pizza.

Cristina Rojas may be reached at crojas@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @CristinaRojasTT. Find NJ.com on Facebook.