Jolly Holiday Bakery Cafe
Jolly Holiday Bakery Cafe is a counter-service bakery and cafe at the hub end of Main Street, U.S.A. at Disneyland Park in Anaheim, California. Themed to the 1964 film Mary Poppins, it serves pastries, cakes and coffee alongside sandwiches, salads and soups, with seating on a wraparound outdoor veranda facing the park's central hub. Its name comes from "Jolly Holiday", the song Mary Poppins and Bert sing during the film's animated countryside sequence.
History
The cafe opened in January 2012 as the centrepiece of a reworking of dining at the top of Main Street. Its building had a long earlier life: built as the Plaza Pavilion, an opening-era buffeteria restaurant on the west side of the hub, the pavilion had stopped serving food in the late 1990s and spent the following years as the park's Annual Passport processing centre — prime space, overlooking the hub, used for administration rather than guests.[1]
Disney announced in 2011 that the pavilion would return to food service as the Jolly Holiday Bakery Cafe, with an expanded menu and outdoor seating. When it opened in January 2012, the park's existing bakery, the Blue Ribbon Bakery on Main Street, closed; the Jolly Holiday took over its role as Main Street's bakery, while the Blue Ribbon's former space was given to the neighbouring Carnation Cafe to restore that restaurant's indoor seating.[2] The reshuffle thus gave the hub a large new bakery cafe and returned a second, older restaurant to its original footprint at the same time.
Setting
The cafe occupies the Victorian-style pavilion on the west side of the hub, just past Refreshment Corner and beside the entrance to Adventureland. A weather vane in the shape of Mary Poppins tops the roof, and a penguin figure — one of the waiter penguins from the film's animated sequence — perches on the entrance arch, positioned so that from certain angles it appears to be climbing the Matterhorn in the distance.
Inside, the Mary Poppins theme is applied with a light touch suited to the Edwardian setting of both the film and Main Street itself. Stained-glass windows depict the penguin waiters, and details include silhouettes of Mary Poppins and the Banks children, porcelain birds and sugar bowls in reference to "A Spoonful of Sugar", and a floor mosaic recalling Bert's chalk pavement pictures. Seating is outdoors, at tables under umbrellas on the veranda and terrace, from where guests can watch the hub, the castle and passing parades.
Cuisine
As a working bakery, the cafe's counters are dominated by baked goods: cinnamon rolls, croissants, muffins, cookies, cupcakes and fruit tarts, together with espresso drinks and other coffees. Its signature sweet item is the Matterhorn Macaroon, carried over from the Blue Ribbon Bakery — a dense coconut macaroon dipped in white chocolate to imitate the snow-capped peak of the nearby Matterhorn mountain. A raspberry-rose Mickey macaron has become a second signature in later years.[3]
For lunch and dinner the bakery operates as a cafe, serving salads, quiches and sandwiches. Its best-known savoury item is the Jolly Holiday Combo, a toasted cheese sandwich served with tomato basil soup; later additions have included a beef birria toasted cheese sandwich served with consommé for dipping. Seasonal items rotate through the menu for holidays and park events, and Mary Poppins herself has at times appeared in the area, greeting guests near the cafe that bears her song's name.