Barnyard Barbecue
Counter service character dining restaurant
Brazilian barbecue, waffles, and comfort food
Families in Pioneer Fields looking for a relaxing place to sit down and grab a delicious, filling meal need look no further than Barnyard Barbecue. This Chilean farmhouse out in the fields serves as one of DisneySky’s largest counter service restaurants. A sprawling menu of comfort items ranges Brazilian barbecue to chicken & waffles and more. This is also a major character dining spot, guaranteeing Disneyfied diners character sightings.
The farmhouse is delicately designed with many different levels of gables and thatched rooftops all intersecting at several points. Maintaining our high level of DisneySky detail, the white stucco walls are weathered, with artful patches of exposed adobe brick beneath. A front yard with white picket fence leads to the covered porch entrance. The yard is filled with dangling wind chimes and eclectic spinning metal wind sculptures - all thematically linked to “sky.” Paper airplanes are visible on display in a farmboy’s upstairs bedroom window.
Heading inside, guests find a traditional rural home dressed up for a big family barbecue gathering! Festive streamers festoon every surface. The initial entry vestibule includes a staircase to the farmhouse’s (inaccessible) upstairs. Hints of personal decor create a lived-in quality.
Diners rather turn right into a large domestic kitchen & dining room, complete with an ordering counter built into the kitchen island. Cast members appear as gaucho farmhands. Like in Hollywood Studios’ Prime Time Diner, these gauchos remain in character - always incredibly welcoming to diners, treating them like close friends invited to a feast. Surrounding decor speaks volumes of the gaucho lifestyle, with bric-a-brac ranging from saddles to ponchos, lassos, bolos, and horseshoes. Art and black-and-white framed photos line the walls, all gaucho-themed. A guitar and accordion rest in an alcove. Some Inca-style llama artwork on display subtly references The Emperor’s New Groove.
Counter service ordering takes place here, with hastily-erected chalkboards listing menu items. (Similar menus appear on flyer posters by the outdoor entrance.) Barnyard Barbecue is one of DisneySky’s dedicated breakfast restaurants, where morning dishes include jumbo-sized Mickey waffles with your choice of toppings. Chefs labor around a huge vintage waffle machine made of iron, which is visible from the porch queue as a crowd draw.
Waffles really are the specialty here! Delicious scents waft across the farmlands throughout the day. Waffles even feature on the lunch & dinner menu, in the form of chicken & waffle meals or as savory-and-sweet waffle sandwiches. The drink menu prominently features yerba mate, a traditional South American tea (served hot or cold). Other afternoon foodstuffs include Brazilian-style barbecue, available a-la carte in many different serving sizes.
While guests can order their barbecue in the kitchen, it is actually roasted out back in the fields. Most of the dining occurs outdoors as well, partly along a backyard porch or on a cobblestone patio beneath shaded picnic tables. Peruvian alpaca tablecloths dot every table. There is plenty to see out here! Kinetic wind sculptures break up the tables. Mickey’s Plane Crazy zooms past in the nearby orchards. The traditional Brazilian barbecue station already mentioned is off to one side, dazzling guests with its open flames and delicious scents. Chefs cook assorted meats on swords, serenading diners with old gaucho folk songs while they work. At night, heat lamps and strings of popcorn lights provide extra ambiance. Disneyland fans who miss the homespun fun of Big Thunder Ranch will find lots to love here.
Indoor dining is set in a Chilean wine cellar. Casks line the stone walls. Brick archways divide up the room. Paintings and decor speak volumes of the proud Chilean wine industry. Barnyard Barbecue’s dedicated restrooms are discreetly located near the wine cellar in similar rooms of brick and adobe.
Character dining takes place in good weather (which happens 95% of the time in Southern California). Pioneer Fields’ vast cast of walkaround characters love to stop by in Barnyard Barbecue and interact with diners. If you eat here you are practically guaranteed to meet Mickey or Russell or Jose Carioca, among others. A timetable out front lists the day’s schedule. Characters make it a point to draw attention from throughout the land, from the rides and the walkways, ensuring that Barnyard Barbecue always remains a focal point!
Pie-In-the-Sky Pie Shoppe
Counter service restaurant
Pies and other bakery sweets
Some of the best baked goods in all of DisneySky are found at the Pie-In-the-Sky Pie Shoppe in Paseo Plaza. There is no missing this shop, what with its massive spinning windmill on the roof - one of Pioneer Fields’ best kinetic elements! The windmil’s design is a mixture of the Solvang windmill (famously seen in Those Magnificent Men and Their Flying Machines) and Brazil’s Holambra windmill (which, surprisingly, is among the few windmills in South America). The moving mill arms are made of converted Flyer wings.
The Shoppe’s entrance includes a marquee of a winged pie. A nearby display beckons guests with visions of pies cooling in the windowsill...one fake pie even releases a chilling mist, in a rather cartoony detail.
The interior is mostly a nice, normal period bakery. Brand new copper kitchenware hangs from metal frames. Big vintage ovens appear nearby, mostly for display. Nothing too spectacular here…
Oh, did I forget to mention the pie fight?!
A comedic pie fight took place not too long ago. The Shoppe is stuck in the aftermath, and the owners are still cleaning up! Pie goo coats the walls; combatants’ silhouettes are visible where the cream filling ceases. (In case you’re wondering, this is theme park decoration, not real gunk.) Whole pies remain stuck against old silent movie comedy posters. A fruity pie aroma permeates the air. The only surfaces unaffected are the spots where guests congregate, and the ordering counter. Nearby is a used mop.
Pie-In-the-Sky Pie Shoppe isn’t itself a dining area. Guests are invited to pick up their slices of seasonal pie (along with other bakery sweets) and enjoy them on the land’s many benches outside.
During special seasonal events, the Shoppe even hosts a genuine “pie eating contest” on the front promenade! Park guests are invited to sign up for this ridiculous spectacle, to be forever immortalized by Disney’s marketing.
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