Casey's Corner
Casey's Corner is a quick-service restaurant on Main Street, U.S.A. at Magic Kingdom in Walt Disney World, Florida. Themed to baseball and to Ernest Thayer's 1888 poem "Casey at the Bat", it serves ballpark-style food, principally hot dogs, from a prominent corner site at the end of Main Street facing the park's central hub. The site has been a Coca-Cola refreshment location since Magic Kingdom opened on October 1, 1971; it took its present name and theme on May 27, 1995.
History
When Magic Kingdom opened in 1971, the corner was occupied by the Coca-Cola Refreshment Corner, modelled on the Refreshment Corner that had operated at Disneyland in California since 1955 and likewise sponsored by Coca-Cola. The Florida version served drinks and hot dogs in a turn-of-the-century setting and used live ragtime piano as part of its atmosphere, as the California original did.
The baseball theme arrived from Paris. When Disneyland Paris opened in 1992, its Main Street refreshment corner was named Casey's Corner after "Casey at the Bat", Thayer's comic ballad about the Mudville slugger who strikes out at the decisive moment. Walt Disney had adapted the poem as an animated segment of Make Mine Music in 1946, which gave the reference a direct place in the studio's own history. As part of a mid-1990s remodelling of the north-west block of Main Street, the Florida Refreshment Corner was rethemed on the same concept and reopened as Casey's Corner on May 27, 1995. The year of the poem appears in the restaurant's signage, worked into the letter C of its name.
Setting and theme
The restaurant occupies the last building on the west side of Main Street, where the street opens into the hub in front of Cinderella Castle, and many of its outdoor tables face the castle and the parade route. Inside, the decoration is given over to vintage baseball: period-style posters, pennants, photographs and memorabilia cover the walls, and the uniforms and caps worn by staff follow the theme. A small indoor seating area is arranged with bleacher-style benches facing a screen showing classic animated sports shorts, in the manner of spectators at a game.
Entertainment is part of the location's identity. A pianist performs ragtime and early American popular music at an upright piano outside the restaurant, continuing a tradition that goes back to the Refreshment Corner era and making the corner one of the regular live music spots on Main Street.
Menu
The menu is deliberately narrow and built around the hot dog. All-beef hot dogs are served plain or in loaded forms such as chilli-cheese, alongside corn dog nuggets, French fries and a small number of sides and desserts. Limited-time hot dogs with changing toppings have been offered periodically, and plant-based versions have appeared on the menu in recent years. Coca-Cola products remain the drinks offering, in keeping with the sponsorship the site has carried since 1971. Casey's Corner supports mobile ordering, and its position at the hub means it is among the busiest counter-service locations in the park at parade and fireworks times.