Diminshing quality of Restaurants

[BrerVeritas]

I have noticed in my recent visits to WDW that the quality of full service restaurants has been slowly deteriorating.

When I was young my favorite restaurant was the Biergarten in Germany. When I was there in 1999 I found that it had changed to a buffet style and the quality of food had gone down. Happily, though, on this trip I found a new favorite restaurant in Tony's Town Square. They had an extensive menu, and quite possibly the best shrimp alfredo over linguini I had ever tasted.n When I returned last August I found that not only did they not serve the Shrimp Alfredo anymore but they had cut the menu down to one page. As I went to other fll service restaurants througout the park I found that all of the restaurants had gone to a one page menu with very limited selections.

Also, last August, while I was there on my honeymoon, my wife and I went to MGM with the plans of having a good breakfast on one of their early opening mornings. We found that our breakfast selections were limited to one counter service restaurant that served the same selections as our Food Court at our Moderate Resort.

Dining at Disney used to be the most magical part of the experience for me. The food was exquisite and the atmosphere was undeniably magical. The atmosphere still remains at the better full service eateries, but what happened to the food quality and choices.

Has anyone noticed any other similar downtrends? When did this start? Is there anyhope for a culinary revival?

 

[Pixie Duster]

I love Tony's, I love most of our restuarants. I believe the guest feedback we recieved was that there was too much to choose from. Also studies show that people get frustrated when menus are more than a page because they don't read menus they just glance at them and it is too much to look at with more than one page.
The food quality has not gone done, just the food selection. I am sorry that you are disappointed, once again if you want something done, write to Disney.

 

[General Grizz]

My least favorite part about Disney dining is the small, standard selection of food all around Walt Disney World, namely Magic Kingdom. I miss, especially, the pulled chicken sandwich at the Mile Long Bar (now Pecos Bill cafe).

This is why losing most of the Sunshine Season Food Fair may not be all too great of a thing.

 

[BrerVeritas]

This is why losing most of the Sunshine Season Food Fair may not be all too great of a thing.

Exactly, the Sunshine Season food fair was one of the last places in the parks with a wide selection to choose from. Speaking also, as a former vegitarian, it had the best non-carnivorous choices on the property. If it goes, it will take a must eat place off my itinerary.

Posted by Pixie Duster
The food quality has not gone done, just the food selection.

Most places have not decreased the quality of the food. I must say that the Crystal Palace french toast is still my favorite breakfast food in the whole world. On the other hand, having eaten in the Biergarten, on every one of my visits throughout my life,(Since EPCOT opened) there was a definite diminshing of quality in the late nineties. The sauerbraten got just bit drier, and the sauerkraut abit less "sauer". Maybe I'm being a bit of a food snob, because it is still better than anything I get in New Jersey, but I am worried about a continued fall in quality. They can try all they want, but a small amount of choices made assembly line style, will always lose out to the care that goes into individual orders. It hasn't reached that point yet, but I fear they are on a slippery slope, of not paying quite as much attention to the quality of food throughout the park.

 

[DigitalDisney]

I agree completely. The main downfall for these restaurants are character breakfasts / dining. Not only are the restaurants getting worse, but they are also increasing the prices, and decreasing the food quantity / quality.

My whole family used to love eating at Hollywood and Dine in MGM. Not so much any more.

My parents used to love eating at the Crystal Palace. Not so much any more.

My whole family used to enjoy The Land Grille Room. Not so much any more.

This change in restaurants has been a consistant trend though. One of my favorite meals in Epcot used to be a salad / breadstick combo at the Farmers Market. Over time, the bowl got smaller, and the recipe changed as well. It was different on every trip; sometimes the bowl size and quality of breadsticks even increased.

 

[ClemsonTigger]

Compromise and Variety

I do agree with an apparent trend to homogenization of food offerings. I also understand and accept the point made by Pixie Duster:

I believe the guest feedback we recieved was that there was too much to choose from. Also studies show that people get frustrated when menus are more than a page because they don't read menus they just glance at them and it is too much to look at with more than one page.

If 50% of the people get a hamburger, 30%chicken and 15% pasta, (OK, 5% other before I get someone correcting my math) Disney will probably focus the menu on those items. It also makes for easier inventory control.

I do however wish they would alter the offerings over the various sites. Instead of one place carrying A,B,C and D, or the current state where most places all carry A and B, alternate more where some are A and B, some C and some D...even surprise us with an occasional E and F.

Enjoying my time at the table, the variety is one of the many reasons I like Epcot. You do get a nice variety and very different offerings. AK is pretty good with Tusker, Pizzafari and Flame Tree being sufficiently different. I hope to see more variety (Thai, Indian, African) as the park expands. I would like to see MK follow that approach.

As for the Biergarten, I too miss the regular restaurant...then again Canada went from a buffet to menu so I guess its a draw. (I didn't know of that change before reading it on these boards) I had just sworn off Canada for meal consideration, and would never have revisited it for eating otherwise.

 

[Superstretch]

I think...

I think that I disagree. IMO, Disney has done a wonderful job of bringing their menus into the 21st century. I like that all of the menus are one paged--it makes it easy to find a good selection. Sometimes menus are so big that I feel as if I missed an entree that I really would have enjoyed. Disney always impresses me with the food presentation also (a la CA Grille & flying fish).

Last year in July, I dined at Germany in the Biergarten. Honestly, I couldn't have asked for more. It was excellent :slurp: --especially with the show. I should point out that about 2 years previous to this, the restaurant was poor in quality and selection (as my family and I almost stopped dining there). Anyways, on this trip, there was only one restaurant out of 24 that I dined at that was horrible and definitely *decreased* in quality. That is Italy's l'original Alfredo's d'Roma. It was a lunch and I ordered a pizza. I was the worst pizza I have ever eaten--bland sause, cheese that looked like it had been sitting around for hours, and canned mushrooms. Yuck! I sent it back only to receive a similar pizza. Oh well. On a whole, though, I couldn't be happier with dining Disney style--infact it's a highlight of my trip. Some parks need more sit down restaurants (aka DAK).