The Adventureland Veranda
1971 - 1994
 

"Fried chicken, hot sandwiches and soft drinks
in a Polynesian setting."
Magic Kingdom guidebook, 1975

  In a 1992 interview, Professor Stephen Fjellman (anthropologist and author of Vinyl Leaves: Walt Disney World and America), observed that Disney divides the cultures of the world into two groups: Euro-Americans and "exotic others."  The Adventureland Veranda is where the food of these "exotic others," as dubiously authentic in nature as Disney's depictions of their respective nations, was offered up to hungry park guests for nearly 23 years.

  This restaurant was the first location that visitors to Adventureland would encounter on their trip across the bridge from Main Street USA or the hub.  Housed in a large building awash in the architectural styles of at least two separate continents, the Adventureland Veranda was home to some of the Magic Kingdom's most mismatched decor, best cast member costumes and undeniably intriguing entrees.

  The building, which sits relatively untouched since the restaurant closed in July 1994, manages to look Caribbean, Chinese, African and Polynesian all at the same time. It is perhaps as great a tribute as any other in the Magic Kingdom to Disney's ability to interpret popular conceptions of distant locales and, in turn, reinvent those same conceptions. Inside the furnishings were equally melded, with dark wooden paneling, earth-colored tile floors, high ceilings braced by ornate rafters and flowery brass chandeliers. It was a setting of oblique tropical elegance, borrowing from a wider range of influences than I am able to enumerate.  To the east of the restaurant was an outdoor dining area, the real veranda, that was primarily Caribbean in feeling.  It looked out over the central canals of the hub.  To the west of the restaurant was another open-air dining area ensconced in the alcoves opposite the Swiss Family Treehouse attraction.  Between the two of these was another patio, a high, glass-ceilinged decagonal space with a brick floor.  Nearby, the Aloha Isle juice bar still operates from one exterior section of the Veranda's facade. 

The Adventureland
Veranda

Extinct WDW Restaurant

Located in:
Adventureland,
Magic Kingdom

Opened: October 1, 1971
Closed: July, 1994

Omniluxe Award for:
Best place to buy
soggy fries drenched in
sweet and sour sauce

Sponsors:
Kikkoman (1977-1994)

Remnants:
Space still exists as
big empty building

Influences evident in:
Colonel Hathi's
Pizza Outpost
(Disneyland Paris)

Related Internal Sites:
Adventureland

All photos copyright
The Walt Disney Company.
 Text copyright 2000
Mike Lee 

   I would like to acknowledge the
thoughtful assistance of
Dave Applewhite
and
Brian Lee
with my research on
the Adventureland Veranda

   The Adventureland Veranda opened with the park but had no sponsor until October 1977, when soy-sauce giant Kikkoman stepped into what seemed a custom-built void. In conjunction with this sponsor, the establishment set forth some of the park's most eclectic food offerings. The Teriyaki Burger, for example, was a delightfully bland tasting slab of semi-beef stuffed in a bun with a slice of pineapple.  The Shrimp Fried Rice with Egg Roll or South Seas Fruit Salad were similarly fresh and appetizing choices for the discerning explorer's palate. Years before the park ever experimented with waffle fries, the Veranda served the thinnest, soggiest french fries in the world.  Premium stuff.  But high above the rest, at least in my esteemed opinion, was the gastronomically reprehensible Sweet and Sour Hot Dog.  This delicacy, unfortunately, did not survive menu changes during the restaurant's later years. 

  Adding to the incomparable atmosphere of the Veranda was a soothing, criminally lazy, loop of Polynesian-like background music. The relaxing strains of steel guitar standards like "Harbor Lights" and "Blue Hawaii" rolled through the dining areas, and out onto the Adventureland streets, like waves of enchantment. The songs were not only easing to the senses, it was also safer for guests (as it generally caused them to chew their food more slowly and thoroughly).  This music, however, was retired in early 1993.  It was replaced by the current background track for the majority of Adventureland, which is significantly more upbeat and regrettably less romantic.   

   Cast members at the Veranda were bestowed with the double blessing of a relatively tranquil work environment and some of the best costumes in the park.  From the mid-70s until April 1994, they wore the outrageous turquoise, green and black outfits that screamed "hip" with a voice rooted firmly in the 1960's.  It was virtually impossible to look bad in these getups, and for this and other reasons I lament never having worn one during my time as a Kingdom cast member. The costumes were enough to make one overlook the polyester reality, there was only "the look." The latter-day costumes, still worn at Aloha Isle, do not measure up.

 The Adventureland Veranda entered into a cyclical operating schedule in late 1993, which kept it closed two days out of the week except in peak seasons.  Less than a year later, its doors were permanently closed.  A similar approach was taken with Liberty Square's Columbia Harbour House the following year, but that decision was reversed due to apparent guest demands.  For a while, the Veranda was used as a staging area for special events such as children's birthday party packages, but that practice seems to have diminished of late.  The building now sits quietly while thousands of guests tread its perimeter on a daily basis, many unaware of the great bad food that they're missing.

  In early 1998 the Veranda "reopened" in only the most base sense while Frontierland's Pecos Bill Cafe underwent a major rehab.  The menu items were entirely generic renditions of once-exotic plates, meaning hot dogs, hamburgers and french fries - all free of the questionable embellishments this restaurant used to foist upon them.

  Widen Your World sincerely hopes that the Adventureland Veranda will one day reopen as it was meant to be and render this page moot, at which point it will gladly be retired.