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'''ABC Commissary''' is a quick-service restaurant on Commissary Lane at [[Disney's Hollywood Studios]] at Walt Disney World Resort in Florida. Themed as the canteen of a working television studio, it takes its name and identity from the ABC television network, which became part of the Disney family in the mid-1990s. It is the park's principal indoor counter-service restaurant on the west side of the park, known for a large, air-conditioned dining room decorated with photographs and props celebrating ABC programmes.

== History ==

The restaurant did not begin with ABC. The park, then called Disney-MGM Studios, had been designed for smaller crowds than it actually drew, and Imagineers added a studio commissary restaurant on the newly created Commissary Lane to relieve the pressure. The Commissary Restaurant opened to guests on December 16, 1990.<ref name="mickeywiki">{{cite web |title=ABC Commissary |publisher=The Mickey Wiki |url=https://themickeywiki.com/index.php?title=ABC_Commissary&redirect=no&printable=yes&mobileaction=toggle_view_mobile}}</ref><ref name="allears">{{cite web |title=REVIEW: Don't Shoot the Messenger, But One of the Best Hollywood Studios Meals Just Changed for the Worse |publisher=AllEars.Net |url=https://allears.net/2026/09/18/review-dont-shoot-the-messenger-but-one-of-the-best-hollywood-studios-meals-just-changed-for-the-worse/}}</ref> In that first incarnation the theming was generic television: props and photographs from the broader world of TV rather than any single network.

Disney's purchase of ABC in 1995 gave the restaurant a natural new identity. On July 1, 1997, the Commissary Restaurant was given an ABC overhaul and reopened as the ABC Commissary, its walls restocked with props and photographs celebrating the history of ABC Television.<ref name="mickeywiki" /><ref name="allears" /> The new name has remained ever since, even as individual ABC programmes featured in the décor have come and gone.

The restaurant's most substantial change since the 1990s came in 2019. It closed in late April of that year for an extensive refurbishment and reopened on May 29, 2019, with new décor, carpet, seating and a revised colour palette, along with the addition of reservation-style seating for part of the dining room during its early period.<ref name="mickeywiki" /> It continues to operate as a lunch and dinner quick-service location, with mobile ordering alongside the traditional counters.

== Setting ==

The premise is the studio commissary of Hollywood tradition: the place where actors, writers and crew eat between takes. Guests order at counters at one end of a long, high-ceilinged room and carry their trays into a dining hall that mixes Art Deco touches — stepped geometry, stylised lighting and bold colours — with the practical, hard-wearing character of a working canteen.

The decoration is a gallery of ABC's history. Framed photographs, posters and display cases have, over the years, featured programmes from across the network's catalogue, from long-running soaps and comedies to the network's news and sports identities. Palm trees and planters break up the room, a nod to the Southern California studio lot the space is meant to evoke, and the seating is arranged to handle the large lunchtime crowds the restaurant was built for. Outdoor seating along Commissary Lane supplements the hall, giving the location one of the larger total capacities of any quick-service restaurant in the park.

== Cuisine ==

The menu is American quick-service food with a somewhat broader reach than a standard burger counter. Burgers and sandwiches have anchored the menu throughout its life, joined over the years by salads, chicken dishes, tacos, a Mediterranean-style salad offering, plant-based options and seasonal items that rotate more frequently than at most comparable locations. The restaurant has periodically been used to test new quick-service dishes for the park, and its menu changes are watched accordingly. Desserts and fountain drinks complete the counter, and the location serves as a common choice for guests seeking an indoor meal without a reservation in a park where table-service restaurants book up early.

== See also ==

* [[Disney's Hollywood Studios]]
* [[Backlot Express]]
* [[Hollywood & Vine]]
* [[50's Prime Time Café]]

== References ==

<references />

[[Category:Restaurants]]
[[Category:Disney's Hollywood Studios]]
[[Category:1997 establishments]]

ABC Commissary - Revision history

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