Lamplight Lounge
Lamplight Lounge is a restaurant and lounge in Pixar Pier at Disney California Adventure in the Disneyland Resort, California. It opened on June 23, 2018, the day Pixar Pier itself debuted, replacing Ariel's Grotto and the Cove Bar in the same two-storey waterfront building at the entrance to the pier. Its theme celebrates the artists and storytellers of Pixar Animation Studios, and its name refers to Luxo Jr., the desk lamp that serves as Pixar's mascot.
History
The building's dining history begins with Disney California Adventure itself. The site first opened on February 8, 2001, as Avalon Cove, a seafood restaurant operated in the park's original Paradise Pier area. On December 20, 2002, it was reworked as Ariel's Grotto, a character-dining restaurant themed to The Little Mermaid, where Disney Princesses visited tables. Attached to it, the outdoor Cove Bar became popular in its own right, known for colourful cocktails, an unofficial list of off-menu drinks passed between regulars, long waits in its final years, and a dish of lobster nachos that acquired a following beyond the park.
When Disney announced in 2017 that Paradise Pier would be rethemed as Pixar Pier, the restaurant's future was part of the plan. Ariel's Grotto and the Cove Bar closed in January 2018; the Cove Bar briefly reopened that spring, from mid-March to the end of May, to give regulars a final season before the conversion was completed. Lamplight Lounge then opened with Pixar Pier on June 23, 2018.
Design and theme
In the restaurant's story, the building is a former warehouse and factory on the pier that was converted into a gathering place where Pixar artists would meet after work. The interiors keep industrial features of that imagined building — exposed structure, brick and steel — and fill them with evidence of its supposed regulars: concept sketches, doodles, story notes, props and memorabilia connected to Pixar films, displayed as if left behind by the people who made them.
The restaurant works on two levels. The upper level, in the former Cove Bar space, is a largely open-air bar and patio; the lower level is a more enclosed dining room with a full bar of its own. Both levels look out over Paradise Bay toward Pixar Pier's attractions, including the Incredicoaster and the Pixar Pal-A-Round, and the patio is a viewing position for the World of Color nighttime show performed on the bay.
Food and drink
Lamplight Lounge serves what Disney described at opening as California casual gastropub cuisine: shareable small plates and larger dishes presented with references to Pixar films in their names and presentation. The lobster nachos from the Cove Bar were deliberately carried over to the new menu at opening, after their survival became a point of public interest among the bar's regulars, and they remain the location's signature dish. Other long-running items have included a carne asada roll and potato skins reworked in a gastropub style.
The bar programme is a central part of the operation, continuing the Cove Bar's role as one of the few places inside the park serving a full cocktail list, with drinks named for Pixar films and production terms. A second location, Lamplight Lounge – Boardwalk Dining, later opened in the upper outdoor space for walk-up guests during busy periods, offering a shortened version of the menu.