Dining with characters is done

[MisterPenguin]

1) for the customer, decision analysis is a very real thing. Too many options and they can’t decide. (For example asking your SO if they want “Italian or Curry” will get you a answer more quickly than asking ”where do you want to go for dinner?”)

When I go to a Greek diner, the kind with a 15 page menu, and see my dining-mate starting to go through it, I tsk tsk them and say, "Close the menu. Just think about what you want to eat, whether it's a breakfast item, dinner entree, or a bunch of apps... and they will have it."

Works every time.

 

[PirateFrank]

You are correct about some things, but incorrect about the DDP and its effect on a restaurant's menu. The proliferation of the DDP is directly related to the homogenization of the menus and the "quality cap" seen in WDW restaurants. This does not come from an educated guess, feelings, or personal observation. It comes directly from a conversation I had with the owner of La Hacienda, Richard Debler.

He directly stated that the DDP absolutely dictates what is on the menu of any participating restaurant. Disney pays a fixed amount for a one credit TS meal. Because of this, a restaurant can't put better quality items on the menu without losing money anytime someone orders said item. He stated, "We can't put something like a good quality fillet on the menu without losing money becoming a signature restaurant."

Where you are correct is that eliminating the DDP would not guarantee that restaurants would suddenly provide a large, high quality menu. But as it is now, the DDP all but eliminates a restaurant's ability to increase the variety and quality of its menu.

To me, this is a flat out defenseless point - for anyone that tries to claim DDP wasn't at the epicenter of food quality decline. Also, I highly doubt the flat rate you refer to was getting adjusted upward in line with food/service cost increases & inflation - resulting in a continued downward pressure for these 3rd party restaurant owners to maintain margins.

That only applies to the third party owned-and-operated restaurants, though.

The general manager at a Disney-owned restaurant gets credit on his P&L for the menu price of items ordered as if everyone paid with cash. The delta is made up for "off the books" of the individual restaurant in an account similar to breakage.

Let's be real. Disney owned and operated restaurants already had hard caps on the cost of a table service meal sold. I am highly confident that Disney had a TS meal ceiling price derived from the price of the DDP sold in the same time period (probably down to a penny)...and I doubt they were every going to let their own internal restaurants offer a meal that cost more than that ceiling. Even if the Disney-owned restaurant was able to receive a dollar for dollar credit on the TS meal claimed on the DDP, the cost to produce that meal was capped. The effect (to what Master Yoda referred to above) was/is identical.

 

[Parker in NYC]

Boma will re-open when AKL re-opens.

And yes, I know the DVC rooms are open there but they are a fraction of the total number of rooms. Until the resort re-opens for regular guests there is little chance they staff Boma and Jiko.

I’m completely out of the loop. I didn’t know AKL proper hadn’t reopened.