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The evolution of extreme themed dining

Opinion
Ocean Room at Eatrenalin Europa Park

How theme parks are stepping up their food and drink experiences

By Lance Hart, Screamscape

The concept of enjoying a “themed meal” is perhaps as old as the idea of dining out. At the low end of the spectrum, you may just be looking to enjoy a meal from a certain culture. For instance, going out for Mexican or Chinese. A notch up the themed dining pecking order, you may want to enjoy a meal in a restaurant with a light fun theme. For example, a Southern Country Kitchen, a French Bistro or a romantic dinner with some fine Italian cuisine.

Cozy street with tables of cafe in Paris, France

If you continue down this line of thought, you will eventually enter the realm of theme park dining. After all, a restaurant set within the various themes present within a theme park is sure to offer a unique experience.

Theme parks and themed restaurants

There is a lot of shared history between theme park and themed restaurant concepts. For example, the original concept from the founders of SeaWorld was not a theme park at all. Instead, the original four park founders intended to create an underwater restaurant. In reality, they hit a technical dead-end on the concept and opted to build the world-famous marine theme park instead. The original SeaWorld opened on 21 March 1964 and will turn 60 years old in a few weeks.

The dream to build a truly underwater restaurant came true in 2005 with the opening of Ithaa. Part of the Conrad resort on Rangali Island, it is located five meters below sea level in the Maldives. Apparently, the unique restaurant only has the capacity for 14 diners at a time. Guests are seated within a giant acrylic tunnel-shaped structure, which they enter by descending a spiral staircase from the surface.

Unique experiences

While Ithaa was designed to stimulate all your senses, what would you say about a themed restaurant concept designed to take all of that away and leave you with nothing at all? This is the unique appeal of Dans Le Noir. In this small chain of very intimate restaurants, guests are seated and served their food in complete and utter darkness.

The idea is that without visual bias, diners will discover heightened access to their senses of touch, taste and smell. The concept has grown to feature 13 locations spread across nine different countries. In a brilliant move, the servers are experts in this field of work, as they only hire visually impaired people.

dan le noir restaurant eatertainment themed dining
Dans Le Noir

For those with a love for all things Tiki, I’m told that you won’t want to miss the Tonga Room & Hurricane Bar, located inside the Fairmount Hotel in San Francisco. You can drink and dine to the live music, played by the band on the floating barge, between occasional interruptions as simulated lighting and rain storms pass by.

Fans of South Park may recall an episode with Casa Bonita in Colorado, a magical-sounding themed Mexican restaurant. Now, imagine my surprise when, in a conversation with someone who grew up in Colorado, they told me that Casa Bonita was a very real place and not a fictional creation.

Yes, the themed indoor grotto, complete with waterfalls and even high divers is all very much a real thing. When the COVID pandemic struck however and Casa Bonita had to shut down, seemly for good, the creators of South Park decided to buy it, refurbish it (adding some fun South Park-themed touches) and reopen the restaurant under a slightly new business model, where all diners have to buy an admission ticket that includes the meal selection.

Universal’s themed dining

Jumping back into the realm of theme parks, themed dining experiences are available nearly everywhere. Although, some stick out far more than others.

Three Broomsticks themed dining universal
The Three Broomsticks

Universal Studios, for example, has had a plethora of IPs to choose from, especially at the Universal Orlando theme parks. Here it has been able to craft restaurant experiences such as the Thunder Falls Terrace, just steps away from the plunge of the Jurassic Park River Adventure, or the fine dining of the Mythos restaurant concept on the opposite side of the park.

Fancy a burger for lunch? Then venture over to the original Universal Studios Florida park. You can try out the real-life Krusty Burger or chug a Duff Beer at Moe’s Tavern in The Simpsons area. Harry Potter fans can choose between the Leaky Cauldron in Diagon Alley or the Three Broomsticks in Hogsmeade Village.

If you want even more options, wait until Summer 2025 when the new Epic Universe theme park opens. This will offer more themed dining experiences in each of the park’s four themed lands. These are Super Nintendo World, the Dark Universe of the famous Universal Monsters, the Isle of Berk from How to Train Your Dragon and the third land in the Wizarding World of Harry Potter universe, tied to 1920’s Paris.

Dining experiences at Disney

If you thought that was a lot, Disney has plenty of themed dining options across the globe. With four theme parks set within the Walt Disney World complex, the options are almost limitless. In the Magic Kingdom, Disney offers Cinderella’s Royal Table placed within the famous Cinderella Castle. Not far away you can venture into the castle of Beauty & The Beast in the Be Our Guest restaurant.

Left to right, non-alcoholic drinks: Carbon Freeze, Oga’s Obsession provision, and Cliff Dweller, available at Oga’s Cantina. (Kent Phillips/Disney Parks)
Oga’s Cantina, Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge

Over at Disney’s Hollywood Studios, not only do you have several dining options, complete with themed food, set within the Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge land, but you can also dine in the classic Hollywood era’s Brown Derby restaurant, or get nit-picked by ‘Mom’ to eat all your veggies at the 50’s Prime Time Cafe, which offers many different rooms that look like 1950’s American home kitchens and dining rooms.

Want something a little different? Why not venture inside the Sci-Fi Dine-In Theater. Here, all the tables look like convertible cars parked at an old-fashioned drive-in movie theater, complete with a huge screen playing classic sci-fi movie trailers while you eat. Over at Disney’s Animal Kingdom, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the strange-looking alien food offerings within Pandora: The World of Avatar. Many of the unique offerings here look other-worldly in origin.

Themed dining galore at EPCOT

For dishes that delight from all corners of the Earth, however, there are the many restaurants of Disney’s EPCOT theme park.

Virtually every pavilion features some kind of fine dining experience. The list includes the underwater view as you dine within the Coral Reef, the dark atmosphere of the Le Cellier Steakhouse or enjoy a pint at the Rose & Crown British Pub. Then there is the dark and romantic atmosphere of the San Angel Inn Restaurant, set within the Mexico pavilion. This seats guests right along the path of the dark boat ride across from a replica of a Mayan pyramid.

space 220 restaurant epcot themed dining
Space 220

The newest eatery in Epcot, Space 220, seeks to give visitors an experience that is out of this world… literally. After checking in with the host, guests are led into a “space elevator” which offers a simulated ride up into space to the orbiting restaurant, 220 miles above the surface of Earth. The entire restaurant was built to show off a set of massive observation windows offering a view of outer space and the planet Earth rotating below.

While Walt Disney’s Florida complex has so much to offer, I always seem to come back to California and Disneyland as having my favorite of them all: The Blue Bayou. This may have been one of the first attempts by Disney to create a fully themed dining experience. It exists fully within the world-famous Pirates of the Caribbean dark ride.

Guests on the ride, immediately as their boat leaves the station, find themselves passing through the waters of New Orleans, gliding by a whole restaurant full of diners who get to enjoy the incredible scenic atmosphere of it all for their meal.

Quark’s

One of the best themed dining experiences ever created, Quark’s, sadly closed before its time. This was within the equally well-themed Star Trek: The Experience attraction in Las Vegas which operated from 1998 to 2008. Quark’s Bar & Restaurant was located within the publicly accessible Deep Space 9 promenade area. So, visitors did not have to pay any kind of attraction admission to see it.

Quark’s featured a dining room area as well as table and drink service available at the highly themed bar. And when I say highly themed, I’m not just talking about the bar itself, which was designed as a near replica of the one featured in the TV series. The entire venue was inhabited by staff who were actors in full costume, performing as if they were the real alien species from the show. Many wore full make-up and prosthetics.

I can not stress just how realistic things felt. Themed characters would roam the bar and dining hall, interacting with guests in species-appropriate ways. The staff must have undergone serious training in the ways and lore. Some even spoke in the fictional languages from the show. On one visit I once saw an accomplished Trekkie try to show off to his friends by speaking Klingon, only to be berated by a Klingon for his poor pronunciation.

Between serving the fish-bowl-sized bubbling Warp Core Breach beverages, the Ferengi bartenders would quote appropriate Rules of Acquisition. When my wife and I got married in Las Vegas, after the wedding party we decided to spend the rest of the evening at Quark’s with some friends, try out many of the themed adult beverages, and engage in endless fun with all the great characters at Quark’s that night. It was an experience I’ll never forget.

Eatrenalin – the best themed dining experience?

But who has the ultimate themed dining restaurant? Based on the current reports, because I have not tried it myself, it is at Europa-Park in Rust, Germany.

Europa-Park features many fantastic dining experiences. This includes Food Loop, where your food is delivered by a mini roller coaster track that leads from the kitchen directly to your table. However, the park’s latest experience opened a year ago. Called Eatrenalin (pictured, top), it is outside of the main theme park and closer to the new Rulantica indoor waterpark.

Eatrenaline Europa Park themed dining

While we’ve mentioned theme park-style themed restaurants located within the confines of a dark ride, Eatrenalin takes that experience to the next level and places the diners within a themed dark ride experience.

Costing around $200 US per diner, the guests are seated at a unique solitary table. This also serves as their personal and trackless dark ride vehicle, taking them on a 90+ minute journey. During the experience, they are served an 8-course meal while traveling from one themed room to another.

Thus far Europa-Park has kept the exact nature of the experience a fairly guarded secret, only allowing diners to take video or photos in two of the themed rooms. This has kept much of the rest of the experience as something of a mystery.

There is currently only one Eatrenalin location. However, Mack Rides and Europa-Park, who developed the concept, hope that the concept will expand and find new markets across the world. Hints have been dropped that they’ve discussed the possibility of more in Europe, China and even in America. Such a unique experience should easily be able to find a home in mega-destination cities like Las Vegas or Orlando.

In the meantime, I wonder what new creation may come next and what delights it may offer. 

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Lance Hart

Lance Hart

Lance has been running Screamscape for nearly 20 years. Married and a father to three roller coaster loving kids, he worked for SeaWorld (San Diego and Orlando) in Operations and Entertainment for 19 years.

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