Earl of Sandwich is returning to the Downtown Disney District at Disneyland Resort

D.Silentu5 days ago

The coolest thing about the proposed Mineral King resort would have been the train Disney was going to build to get people there. I’ve driven the road to Mineral King many times and it is my least favorite drive by a wide margin. Harrowing is a good word for it! That being said, as neat as the ski resort would have been, I’m more grateful for all the experiences I’ve had in that national park.

Disney Irish5 days ago

Too bad Walt died, while it continued for a few years after he died I suspect it would have been built if he had been alive even with the opposition from the Sierra Club.

TP20005 days ago

Yes, the Mineral King ski resort would have been very cool.

Ice Gator5 days ago

While I think the AS/Splash animatronics are officially forever gone- there is one concept that could theoretically work like this at DL- Country Bears. It was originally intended for an unbuilt Disney ski resort as a dinner show type venue after the slopes would close. I still a Disney owned ski resort would have been cool.

PiratesMansion5 days ago

They could just copy and paste the Tony Solaroni pizza joint from TDL, complete with AA and 15-minute video loop, and it would be hugely successful.

Homemade Imagineering5 days ago

As a huge sucker for Pizza Time Theater & Showbiz Pizza I wouldn’t mind that in the slightest😆they could build an America Sings lite with vintage parks memorabilia flanking the stage, showroom and all, with a retro arcade attached. Now that CEC has removed a majority of their animatronic stages, maybe Disney could weight in on the nostalgia factor. There really should be more entertainment venues outside the parks with animatronic shows. Not everyone can afford a family vacation

TP20005 days ago

Compared to being stuck next to Mrs. Colglazier at a dinner party or charity event, who I know for a fact is the most boring, bland, and bizarrely snobby woman you can imagine, this artwork must have looked incredibly exciting to Mr. Colglazier.

Consumer5 days ago

I don’t remember the concept art being so bland.

Disneyland/DCA5 days ago

Glad that hotel was never built; super ugly. Although the DVC expansion and Pixar hotel werent great consolations either. Haha! Steaming hot take: they should repurpose some of the old America Sings animatronics into a Chuck E Cheese style venue in either the old ESPN or RFC building.

TP20005 days ago

Good for you for putting your foot down! I went to that RFC quite a few times when my nephews were young 20 years ago, but I could not get over how bad the food was. Everything tasted microwaved and goopy. The restaurant was fun especially with hyped up kids in tow, don't get me wrong, but my God was the food awful. I think this shows how much American culture and the Resort's demographics have changed in 25 years. Back then, Downtown Disney was thought to be a combo locals/tourist hangout zone, and thus the theater made sense. But now they are clearly re-aiming Downtown Disney squarely at tourists, and would likely prefer the locals stay away unless they are also going to the parks that day. If only to preserve more parking capacity for parks customers instead of just locals coming to windowshop and promenade around for free. And why pay to go to the movies when you can just stream it at home? Ooh, good point! I had forgotten that part of the timeline here. Yes, that western flank of Downtown Disney was allowed to dwindle and shut down because Michael Colglazier was going to build a big, generic hotel on that property. Thank God that didn't happen and Mr. Colglazier was eventually invited to spend more time with his family.

Ice Gator5 days ago

The space would have really been perfect for an Indy restaurant- like an expanded version of Lindsay’s Hangar Bar over at Disney Springs. IIRC the only other RFC that has the temple exterior is the one in Atlantic City- but it’s more of a facade to the building rather than a whole temple structure built from the ground up. It was such a cool location even if DL’s was lacking many of the animal animatronics the other restaurants had (jaguars and crocodiles).

Homemade Imagineering5 days ago

Happy to help! & yeah I agree, what I’d really love for them to do is maybe an Indiana Jones themed restaurant with AAs and some nice special effects. Of course that makes too much sense for them to ever consider doing it, but seeing that temple vacant with SW merch shoehorned in is very depressing. I talked to a former civil engineer who worked for WDI a while back, and he essentially told me that WDI pushed for the location to look like a temple in order to standout amongst its other locations, most of which are within mills malls

Ice Gator5 days ago

Thanks for the insight. Yeah personally I love RFC- I know the food is pretty standard/overpriced but it's so much fun for kids or just to get a drink or two there on a night out. I live in Michigan and my local RFC is still always busy and full of families as its in a pretty huge mall. The WDW Disney Springs location is probably the best and most profitable since it gets business from tourists 365 days a year. It also has a nice "Lava Lounge" bar that sits outside on the water if you want to avoid the noise of animatronic gorillas and crying children inside. DL's only closed because of that planned hotel that never went through, not that the location was underperforming, which kind of sucks since the temple structure is so cool. I'd rather them bulldoze it entirely since I find the SW gift shop extremely tacky and a waste of space as there is an abandoned two-story restaurant attached to it with a lot of potential. I hope the rest of DTD's refresh takes out the remaining "old" structures so it doesn't feel like you're walking around the skeletons from a much better era of DTD.

Homemade Imagineering6 days ago

I asked a CM who works there, & he essentially told me most of the foliage & all of the animatronics and static figures were removed. Alot of the temple theming & concrete trees have supposedly remained, probably due to the fact they’re alot more difficult to remove and some of it’s disguised structural support, but yeah the AAs were sent back to the warehouse in Texas. I don’t care what anyone says about the food, I personally love RFC! Call it tacky or whatever you want, but that place is decked out floor to ceiling with theming. Aside the food it’s still a pretty important staple in themed entertainment outside of theme parks