Disney World’s Parks Need New Restaurants
A while ago, rumors persisted that Magic Kingdom would introduce a new eatery. At the time, the whisper campaign focused on Tiana as the logical choice.
She is a chef, after all, and she recently added a new attraction there, too.
Photo: Disney
Sadly, those plans never came to fruition, and the frustration lingers. To be honest, it raises a larger point, too. Disney World’s parks need new restaurants.
Let’s discuss Disney’s objectively weird decision-making with dining in the 2020s.
Where’s the Beef?
The Beak and the Barrel opened to tremendous fanfare last year. Fans understandably rushed to the new lounge in anticipation of high-quality food.
What they quickly realized was that Disney took the theming seriously. Pirates get drunk. It’s their thing. So, this place counts as a bar, not really a restaurant.
The Beak and Barrel
Sure, you can order four food items off the menu, but only one, Kraken’s Catch could possibly count as an entrée. Disney intends you to share everything else here in between rum-chugging sessions.
Kraken’s Catch
While fans should have expected this menu, it still triggered some disappointment. People want more high-quality options at Magic Kingdom, but it’s just not happening.
Cook’s Corn Griddle Cakes
Depending on how you define a restaurant, we may not have had a new one in more than a decade. Sure, Astrofizz opened last year, but…come on! It’s a snack shack with fizz in the name.
AstroFizz
Disney’s not trying to tell you to head here for lunch. You’ll go here for a Frozen Coke, and you’ll like it.
What you won’t do is think, “Yes, that place will satisfy my dining needs.”
“It’s Been 84 Years…”
The last Magic Kingdom restaurant that even tried to fit that bill opened in 2015. Yes, Jungle Navigation Co. Ltd. Skipper Canteen currently holds the title as the “newest” eatery.
While you may wish you could travel back in time to 2015, it’s been more than a decade. Magic Kingdom has gone that long without a new dining experience.
Jungle Skipper
Image Credit: Disney
The frustrating part is that the park showed plenty of culinary promise in 2012.
At the time, Be Our Guest Restaurant had just opened, with more coming.
Be Our Guest
Disney proudly announced the Jungle Cruise-themed restaurant soon afterward. So, the park added two exceptional dining options in just three years.
Oh, and it’s three if we count Gaston’s Tavern, a place where I actually have eaten lunch. If you’ve never eaten the Ham and Gruyère Sandwich, it’s a culinary delight.
Ham and Gruyère Sandwich
For a while, we were getting a lot of them at Magic Kingdom. Almost overnight, the story changed. Since then, fans have hoped for something like Tiana’s Palace…and unsuccessfully at that.
You may think that this issue only applies to Magic Kingdom. Well, let’s challenge that assumption.
What’s New?
Can you name the newest restaurant at Disney’s Animal Kingdom? I’ll level with you that I would have gotten this wrong if you’d asked me.
I remember Tiffin’s Restaurant as opening more recently than it actually did. This eatery debuted in 2016, underscoring the point about dining at the parks.
Tiffins
Walt Disney World underwent a dining renaissance during the 2010s. Now that we’re closer to the end of the 2020s than the beginning, we all miss it.
Back then, Disney casually introduced dining options like Satu’li Canteen. And yes, it’s the most recent major restaurant to open at Animal Kingdom.
Satu’li Canteen
That fact will change with the debut of the Tropical Americas, but we don’t know when that will be. We’ll definitely get a delicious dining option when Pueblo Esperanza opens, though.
I take comfort in that thought, as we’ve been waiting for more than a decade.
Tropical Americas
Disney’s Hollywood Studios has done a bit better in this regard, albeit with an asterisk. When Disney announced the sweeping overhaul of this park, we knew the dining would improve.
Due to the expense of building two new themed lands simultaneously, Disney cut corners.
Roundup Rodeo BBQ
So, the newest restaurant at the park, Roundup Rodeo BBQ, should have debuted during the 2010s. That’s right. Disney also planned this eatery during its dining expansion era.
We didn’t get it until 2023 due to budget cuts and, later, the pandemic. Disney greenlit all the park’s newest restaurants at the same time.
Docking Bay 7
Woody’s Lunch Box, Docking Bay 7 Food and Cargo, and the rest were part of this initiative. Roundup Rodeo BBQ was as well, but Disney wound up delaying it by five years.
Are you noticing a pattern here? The company cared more about theme park dining in the 2010s.
Disney’s Parks Need New Restaurants
I’ve conspicuously avoided one park thus far, as it’s the glaring exception. Well, Space 220 isn’t, even though it opened in 2021.
This restaurant experienced so many delays that it became a running joke, like Grand Theft Auto 6. You may not realize this, but Disney announced Space 220 in 2017!
Space 220
Still, EPCOT has added multiple restaurants during the 2020s. Connections Café & Eatery, La Crêperie de Paris, and Regal Eagle Smokehouse all count.
I could add the same asterisk to them, as they would have arrived sooner if not for the pandemic.
Connections Cafe
However, Shiki-Sai: Sushi Izakaya and Takumi-Tei weren’t part of those plans. Virtually all the planning for those two restaurants occurred during the 2020s.
So, yeah. They definitely stick out compared to everything else we’ve mentioned.
Shiki-Sai
Also, I guess I should throw in GEO-82, but it’s similar to The Beak and the Barrel. I actually have eaten lunch at GEO-82, albeit with the constraint of a limited menu.
You can order one of five shareables here, so it’s not really a true restaurant, either. Disney simply isn’t adding those at the parks in the 2020s, which baffles me.
GEO-82
We’re witnessing an overhaul of all the outdated attractions, experiences, and themed lands. Shouldn’t Disney adopt the same approach for its less popular restaurants?
Tortuga Tavern hasn’t been open since July 2024. Disney could definitely revitalize this space.
Tortuga Tavern
I could point to several other spots across the four parks where a new restaurant would do well. For whatever reason, Disney doesn’t want to do it, which baffles me.
Don’t you agree that Disney World’s parks need new restaurants?
