The Crystal Palace (restaurant)
The Crystal Palace is a buffet character restaurant at the end of Main Street, U.S.A. in Magic Kingdom in Walt Disney World. Housed in a Victorian glass conservatory, it serves breakfast, lunch and dinner with characters from Winnie the Pooh. It opened with the park on October 1, 1971, as a cafeteria-style restaurant, and became a character buffet in 1996. A second Crystal Palace opened at Tokyo Disneyland in 1983.
History
The Crystal Palace is an opening-day Magic Kingdom restaurant. Its name and form derive from the Crystal Palace built in London's Hyde Park for the Great Exhibition of 1851 under Prince Albert, and more generally from the ornate glasshouses and conservatories of the later nineteenth century, which also shaped the building's detailing. It stands just off the park's central hub, between Main Street and the entrance to Adventureland, in a garden setting.
For its first twenty-five years the restaurant was a buffeteria: guests carried trays along a serving line and ate in the glass-roofed hall, without characters. It functioned as Magic Kingdom's counterpart to the large cafeteria restaurants of the period and was one of the park's principal places to eat a full meal.
In 1996 the format changed completely. The Crystal Palace reopened as an all-you-care-to-enjoy buffet with character dining, promoted with the phrase "A Buffet with Character". Winnie the Pooh, Tigger, Eeyore and Piglet were chosen as the hosts, and the interior gained topiary and decorative touches referring to the Hundred Acre Wood. The change made it one of the longest continuously operating character meals at Walt Disney World.
The restaurant closed with the park in March 2020 and reopened in December 2020 with a temporary à la carte menu and no characters. Buffet service returned in September 2021, and the Pooh characters resumed visiting tables afterwards.
Setting
The building is a white-framed conservatory with extensive glazing, a domed central section and a wraparound veranda, surrounded by lawns and planting. Inside, the dining room is a single bright space under glass, filled with hanging baskets, palms and other plants in the manner of a Victorian winter garden. Tables are arranged across the floor in several sections, and characters move between them in a circuit, so that each party is visited in turn.
The location, at the junction of Main Street, the hub and Adventureland, means the restaurant is visible from the approaches to Cinderella Castle and is often used for an early breakfast before the rest of the park becomes busy.
Cuisine
All three meals are served from a central buffet. Breakfast includes scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage, breakfast potatoes, biscuits and gravy, fresh fruit, pastries and Mickey-shaped waffles, together with dishes that have become associated with the restaurant, such as a breakfast lasagna layered with eggs, pancakes and berries, and puffed French toast dusted with sugar.
Lunch and dinner offer salads, soups, carved and roasted meats, seafood, pasta, vegetables and a children's section, followed by a dessert selection of cakes, soft-serve ice cream and Pooh-themed items such as honey-based sweets. Menus are revised periodically, but the overall composition — American buffet cooking at a fixed price — has been stable since 1996.
Character dining
The Crystal Palace is the principal place at Walt Disney World to meet the Hundred Acre Wood characters together. Winnie the Pooh, Tigger, Eeyore and Piglet visit each table for photographs and autographs; Piglet and Eeyore in particular appear in few other regular locations. Periodically the characters have led a short parade of children around the dining room, presented as a Friendship Day celebration, a practice that has been offered intermittently.
Character appearances run through all three meals, which distinguishes the restaurant from locations such as 'Ohana, where characters appear only at breakfast.
Other locations
A version of the Crystal Palace opened with Tokyo Disneyland on April 15, 1983, again as a large conservatory restaurant, although its menu and character arrangements follow that park's own practice.