ryguy
Well-Known Member
What about the Beaches and Cream renovation you don't like? I haven't been since the redo. I would think the extra space would be beneficial and make a better experience.
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ESPN Club Done For Good?
- Thread starter wishiwere@wdw
- Start date
UNCgolf
Well-Known Member
They didn't just expand it. They completely overhauled the interior. Extra space would have been fine if they'd kept it themed like a 1950s diner/soda fountain, but they dumped that. It now looks like any random generic spot. The themed interior was the main reason to go; it's not like they served incredible food and I'm pretty sure the ice cream was the same product you could buy at a grocery store. It feels like completely misunderstood why it was popular in the first place. Here's a photo of what it looks like post-renovation:
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Club Cooloholic
Well-Known Member
Yeah, that isn't a place I am going out of my way to have a dessert and burger at.
castlecake2.0
Well-Known Member
I like the new B&C, it really needed an expansion and I could see without it being toned down a bit it might be a bit too much. I still feel like I’m at soda shop when I go, and is actually in my family’s top picks for when they vacation next.
Pre Reno photo for reference:
Pre Reno photo for reference:
JimW
Premium Member
We went there for the first time a few months ago, so it was post-renovation. The decor is pretty unremarkable, and frankly, so was the food. It wasn't bad, just kind of generic. The only thing that seems to set them apart on their ice cream is the portion size. I'll take quality over quantity any day... or even just a better ratio of quality to quantity.
Rosso11
Well-Known Member
As far as Jellyrolls that’s definitely not the case. That’s a highlight for most regulars I know that go to Disney. I’m sure it might be a generational thing but for a decent amount of people it’s very much part of their Disney vacations. Again I’m sure the crowd I am referring to is not the prime target market being couples without children in their 20s-40s but it’s a bigger market than to just brush off as conventioneers. Not that Conventioneers are not a hugely profitable group for Disney but that’s a whole different discussion. Now ACDH I would agree with you. Jellyrolls absolutely not.
UNCgolf
Well-Known Member
That's the problem with the expansion, though -- a lot people went there because it was small with 1950s kitsch. Making it bigger while getting rid of all that 1950s charm means it may not actually need the extra space. They're probably lucky that Ample Hills closed down to keep people from having a better option for ice cream on the Boardwalk.
I agree that they didn't need to just recreate the old look writ large (and that it may have looked bad if they'd done so), but I don't understand why they turned it into something modern. It no longer looks even remotely like anything from the 1950s. I've said it elsewhere, but it's like if they went into the 50s Prime Time Cafe or the Sci-Fi Diner, gutted the inside and just dropped in a bunch of generic tables and booths to increase capacity. The theming was a big part of the draw; turning it into something that looks like a random restaurant you might walk into in a strip mall is a design failure (it actually really reminds me of a convention center meeting room). As @JimW said above, it's now just unremarkable in essentially every way.
I don't mean to jump on you, by the way. I'm glad you like the new look! It really ruined B&C for me, though, and I doubt I'll ever go in there again. It exemplifies the mistakes Disney has been making with renovations/redesigns in recent years.
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Is that tile or carpet regarding the rehab? If it is carpet that would be hard to clean with the place being an ice cream shop.
Tuvalu
Premium Member
It’s tile
castlecake2.0
Well-Known Member
I totally see what you’re saying! I think it just depends on people’s tastes. Same with the new pop century rooms, I love them but I know a lot of people also hate them. I feel like this is the design trend right now, but I feel like the next round of refreshes the resorts go trough might go back to the more over the top designs from before, just like how fashion goes in cycles. Saying all that, they better not do anything like this to 50s prime time, the in park venues should always be over the top!
Ugh, feels like a hotel conference room with colored chairs. That is terrible.
Club Cooloholic
Well-Known Member
But think how easy it would be to change it this place didn't work out. I swear that is the thinking in design for them anymore
UNCgolf
Well-Known Member
I said that in another post! It looks like a conference room to me too. Not sure what exactly it is, but it just gives me that feel.
Heppenheimer
Well-Known Member
The new Beaches and Cream... actually has the look of the restaurants you might find on a real Jersey Shore Boardwalk:
Not that the Boardwalk resort necessarily needs to match reality.
Not that the Boardwalk resort necessarily needs to match reality.
That's one of the cool things about these places. The talented Disney Imagineers go to near and far away places to gain inspiration when designing these places from the ground up.
UNCgolf
Well-Known Member
The Disney Boardwalk wasn't supposed to be reflecting a modern day boardwalk, though. It was supposed to be reflecting an early 20th century boardwalk (although they've basically punted on that theming almost everywhere there now beyond the building facades). Those restaurants you posted are just generic restaurants that don't have anything tying them to a boardwalk -- I could post pictures of restaurants that look like that from all over the US. Things at Disney shouldn't feel generic. Plus, Beaches & Cream isn't really on the Boardwalk anyways, although that's beside the point.
I don't know that the 50s diner/soda fountain theme ever totally made sense at its location at the Beach Club, but it was a fun theme that fit the menu items. Now there's really no theme to the location at all.
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I can get better ice cream at Publix. I can get better food at dozens of other places. Without the decor, what’s the draw?
The food was arguably “better” in the mid to late 90’s, when you could get soda shoppe food like a triple cheeseburger (or even the “Home Run” quadruple burger
).
Anywho... back to the ESPN Club: It would be a shame to lose it altogether.
The food was arguably “better” in the mid to late 90’s, when you could get soda shoppe food like a triple cheeseburger (or even the “Home Run” quadruple burger
).Anywho... back to the ESPN Club: It would be a shame to lose it altogether.
drnilescrane
Well-Known Member
So in fairness - and saying this as somebody who isn't enamored by the current interior - there's nothing authentic about this either. It was the same concept but viewed from a lens of late 1980s tastes, which meant extreme exaggeration and saturated colors. The update to the restaurant is the same but from the late 2010s - clean, minimalist and muted colors.
Unlike the theme parks none of the hotels are really meant to be transportive, but instead be nostalgic deconstructions of a different type of environment. It's perfectly fine to shove a contemporary sports bar onto the boardwalk because it's the type of business you'd expect in that environment, even if the interior was firmly 1996 (and still is) once you got inside.
I personally would rather they stay true to the architect's original visions, even if they update the facilities for more recent tastes and desires. I also wish they'd hire better quality hospitality design firms than constantly going back to the mediocre Las Vegas centric companies they hire today (*cough* Rivera Resort has more in common with the Park MGM than you'd expect *cough*). All of these hotels were built before Disney Development Company got forced into Imagineering and were much better for it.
UNCgolf
Well-Known Member
The original absolutely wasn't authentic (I think I referenced that somewhere above) but it wasn't generic. It at least evoked the 1950s (even if it was only in skewed retro kitschy way that wasn't actually accurate) in a way the current design doesn't.
Not that the renovation absolutely needed to stick with a 50s theme, but having some kind of theme at all would be nice. The current version could go in almost any hotel anywhere and just feel like their standard restaurant. Most Disney resort restaurants do have a theme of some sort.
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