Backlot Express
Backlot Express is a quick-service restaurant in the Echo Lake area of Disney's Hollywood Studios at Walt Disney World Resort in Florida. One of the park's opening-day restaurants from 1989, it is themed as a studio production warehouse — in its own slogan, "A Warehouse of Good Eating" — and guests eat among the props, paints, backdrops and stunt equipment supposedly stored for films shot on the backlot. It stands between Star Tours and the Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular.
History
Backlot Express opened with the rest of the park, then Disney-MGM Studios, on May 1, 1989.[1] Contemporary accounts of the park's first summer describe the counter service at "the Backlot Express, themed to resemble the shops that could be found on any movie lot," serving the Lakeside Circle area, as Echo Lake was first known.[2] It is not to be confused with Studio Catering Co., a separate counter-service restaurant that served the Studio Backlot Tour area off the Streets of America until that area closed in 2016.
While the working-studio park around it largely disappeared — the backlot tour closed in 2014 and the Streets of America followed in 2016 — Backlot Express survived, and is now among the last places in the park where the original movie-making theme is still presented at full strength.[3]
The restaurant's location beside Star Tours shaped its middle years. During Star Wars Weekends in 2015, part of the restaurant was temporarily transformed into the Rebel Hangar lounge experience. From late 2015, the regular menu took on an overt Star Wars character, with items such as the Royal Guard Burger, Dark Side Chicken and Waffles and character cupcakes. Most of those themed names were retired in a menu revision in early 2019, ahead of the opening of Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge, although individual Star Wars-themed treats, such as the Wookiee oatmeal cookie sandwich, have remained or returned since.[4]
Setting
The story is that the warehouse stores everything the studio's craftspeople make: plaster casts, sculptures, painted backdrops and stunt gear. The seating areas are divided into departments, each dressed accordingly — a plaster casting area, a paint department with its cans and colour charts, a sculpture space, a backdrop-painting area and a stunt department complete with dummies and equipment.[5][6] Scattered among the production clutter are genuine props and vehicles recognisable from films and from other Disney attractions, which regular visitors treat as a small museum to be explored between courses.
Much of the seating sits under a large warehouse roof, giving the restaurant extensive covered outdoor and semi-indoor space in addition to its air-conditioned areas. Combined with its central location, that capacity has made it one of the park's most reliable lunch stops.
Cuisine
The menu is classic American counter service: burgers, chicken strips and sandwiches, salads and fries, with desserts, soft drinks and beer.[5] The dishes that carried Star Wars names in the 2010s mostly survived their renaming — the Royal Guard Burger, for example, continued as the Backlot Burger — and the menu has since added items such as a teriyaki chicken bowl and a Cuban sandwich alongside the staples. A plant-based hummus dish and seasonal Star Wars desserts keep a connection to the neighbouring attraction. Mobile ordering is offered, as at most Walt Disney World quick-service restaurants.