Downtown Disney
Downtown Disney, officially the Downtown Disney District, is an outdoor shopping, dining and entertainment district at the Disneyland Resort in Anaheim, California. Opened on January 12, 2001, it runs between the entrances of Disneyland Park and Disney California Adventure in the west and the Disneyland Hotel in the east, linking the resort's parks to its hotels. No admission ticket is required to enter the district.
Development and opening
Downtown Disney was created as part of the late-1990s expansion that turned Disneyland from a single park into a resort destination. The district was laid out on land formerly occupied by the original Disneyland surface parking lot and by parts of the Disneyland Hotel complex, much of which was demolished in 1999 to make room for it. A pedestrian bridge carries the district over Disneyland Drive, the former West Street, which was lowered to pass beneath it.
The design mixes several early twentieth-century Californian architectural styles, including Craftsman, Art Deco and Streamline forms, with extensive planting intended to give the street a garden character. Disney held a preview celebration on the night of January 11, 2001, and the district opened to the public the following day with 28 tenants. Its anchors at opening were a large World of Disney shop at the eastern end and the ESPN Zone sports entertainment venue at the western end, with a 12-screen AMC cinema, a House of Blues concert venue, a Rainforest Cafe and restaurants including Ralph Brennan's Jazz Kitchen, Catal, La Brea Bakery and Naples Ristorante among the original occupants.
Role in the resort
The district serves two audiences: park guests passing between the hotels and the theme park esplanade, and local residents visiting without a park ticket. Its Disneyland Monorail station, located above the western section near the Disneyland Hotel, provides transport directly into Tomorrowland. Disney's Grand Californian Hotel & Spa opens directly onto the district, and a World of Disney store operates in the ground level beneath part of that hotel.
Changes over time
Tenant turnover has been continuous. The House of Blues relocated to the nearby Anaheim GardenWalk in 2016, and its former building became a Splitsville bowling and dining venue. A far larger disruption came in 2018, when Disney announced a fourth resort hotel to be built at the district's western end. In preparation, the AMC cinema, ESPN Zone, Rainforest Cafe, Earl of Sandwich and a Starbucks location all closed in the summer of that year. The hotel project was cancelled within months after a dispute with the City of Anaheim over tax incentives, leaving the western end vacant, although Earl of Sandwich later returned in temporary and then permanent locations.
During the COVID-19 closure of the theme parks, Downtown Disney reopened for shopping and outdoor dining in July 2020, months before the parks themselves, and for a period also absorbed part of Buena Vista Street inside Disney California Adventure as an extension of the district.
West end redevelopment
In 2022 Disney began a multi-year reworking of the west end on the cleared cinema and ESPN Zone site. The scheme replaced the demolished buildings with lower structures arranged around a lawn used for concerts and events, in a mid-century modern style recalling the early Disneyland Hotel era. New tenants in this phase have included the restaurants Paseo and Centrico from chef Carlos Gaytan, a permanent Earl of Sandwich building, the Parkside Market food hall, and the D-Lander Shop and Avengers Reserve retail stores. The long-running Tortilla Jo's restaurant closed in 2024 and its building was converted to new dining concepts. As of the mid-2020s the district contains roughly thirty shops and restaurants, with further west-end construction continuing.