The construction walls are down at long last, and Food Truck Park is open in Downtown Disney’s West Side!
Nestled between Bongos Cuban Cafe and the West Side Starbucks, Food Truck Park provides a home base for the four Disney Food Trucks.
The cuisine of each food truck reflects that of a Disney Park, with Superstar Catering representing Hollywood Studios, and Namaste Cafe for Disney’s Animal Kingdom. World Showcase of Flavors bring tastes from Epcot’s annual International Food & Wine Festival to Disney guests year round, while Fantasy Fare features dishes from “Magic Kingdoms Around the World,” most notably the Hand-dipped Corn Dogs in honor of Disneyland.
Originally slated to open this past summer, Food Truck Park is open at last!
Entrance to Food Truck Park
Atmosphere
The actuality of Food Truck Park differs somewhat from the original artistic renderings.
Food Truck Park concept art
The elevated structure that serves as a de facto entrance to the area was anticipated to provide raised seating that guests would reach via a glass elevator.
Elevated structure
What has come to pass (at least, at this point in time) is a bit more low-key, but still an attractive and open space providing nice waterfront views nonetheless.
Food Truck Park
Food Truck Park
Food Truck Park
Waterfront views
View of Characters in Flight Balloon
Standing tables abound, along with more traditional tables and chairs for those wishing to linger and relax awhile.
Standing tables
Standing table
Tables with seating
There are two cool bonuses, I think, that come along with this dedicated space for the food trucks. First, let’s say you were hoping to try the Dipping Safari at Namaste Cafe. Instead of searching high and low all over Downtown Disney for Namaste Cafe, your chance of locating it easily in a specific spot just got a lot higher.
Superstar Catering and Namaste Cafe
Of course, there is caveat to that statement: the trucks are mobile ;), and therefore still have the potential to be used in other areas — not only in Downtown Disney, but across Disney World. (For instance, while All Star Music’s Intermission Food Court has been undergoing a refurbishment, the Food Trucks have been used at that resort as an additional resource for meal options, including breakfast.) Even so, chances for finding a specific truck or dish have been raised significantly. For a reminder of the offerings, here are the current menus for the trucks:
Disney Food Truck Menus — click to enlarge
Second, it furthers the opportunity for Disney to partner with some local food trucks. On the day of my visit, I was happy to see that the fun Yum Yum Cupcake Truck was operating alongside three of the four Disney Food Trucks. (You may have come across Yum Yum at ESPN’s Wide World of Sports Complex on occasion as well).
The Yum Yum Cupcake Truck
The Yum Yum Cupcake Truck
This past June, Downtown Disney hosted the “Trucks on the Town” event, featuring not only the four Disney Trucks, but also ten local truck eateries. It will definitely be interesting to see if other local trucks are hosted here in the future, since it’s a pretty cool opportunity for partnership.
As was the case with the trucks previously, the operating hours of Food Truck Park will vary based on anticipated crowd levels at Downtown Disney, opening at either 1 pm or 4 pm most days. Closing time will remain consistent at 11 pm. The Disney Food Trucks accept the Disney Dining Plan.
Eats
Now, I couldn’t be surrounded by four food trucks and just walk away without a bite ;). I hadn’t had a chance to sample the current Superstar Catering menu, which was revamped earlier this summer from it’s original meatball sandwich variety concept.
Superstar Catering is the truck which represents eats from Hollywood Studios, and I think the current menu is in better keeping with the park, featuring a Margherita Flatbread and Turkey Sausage Meatball Sub (nods to Mama Melrose’s Ristorante Italiano), and the dish I chose: the Slow-cooked Pot Roast Sandwich (in honor of all the comfort food goodness at 50s Prime Time Cafe).
Superstar Catering menu
The Slow-cooked Pot Roast Sandwich is a generous (and I do mean generous — be sure to grab a fork!) serving of pot roast topped with caramelized onions and two slices of provolone cheese on a roll, served with a side of house made potato chips.
Slow-cooked Pot Roast Sandwich
Slow-cooked Pot Roast Sandwich
First things first: the pot roast — it was great. Super tender and the good kind of stringy, with just enough gravy to provide an extra burst of beefy flavor without turning the sandwich into a sloppy mess.
Pot Roast inside sandwich
The provolone cheese and caramelized onions provided a philly-cheesteak twist on this comfort food classic, with the melted cheese serving as a great, gooey companion to the pot roast.
Pot Roast and melted Provolone
The roll, which I thought might be crusty and crumbly, was surprisingly soft. But the truth is that this sandwich was so huge that it was a bit hard to tackle, so I ended up eating the pot roast mostly on its own, and enjoying much of the gravy-infused bread after, like a dinner roll.
I really enjoyed it, but due to the heartiness of the pot roast in combination with the rich cheese, I would opt to share this one in the future.
Overall
The Disney Food Trucks made their debut almost exactly one year ago, and in that time they’ve showcased some tasty meals that provide hot food options in a grab-and-go fashion. Being scattered across Downtown Disney, though, they didn’t have much of a “place” — while that can certainly be taken in a literal sense 🙂 , I mean it more in terms of establishing a developed identity in the Disney dining scene.
Food Truck Park seems to have to the potential to provide some of that, while still offering the flexibility of sending the trucks out to other locations and also the chance to work with some local businesses. In any case, it’s great to see some of the construction walls come down at last as one of the first steps towards Downtown Disney’s ultimate transition into Disney Springs!
Will you be visiting Food Truck Park in a future visit to Downtown Disney? Please let us know with a comment!
Our handy (and portable!) ebook guides make sure you get the best deals and can plan a vacation of a lifetime.
I was really bummed that the Food Truck Park wasn’t open during the summer when I visited. I’m glad it’s finally opening now. Do you know if it’s a permanent thing, or seasonal/temporary?
Also, do any of the food trucks accept Disney Dining Plan credits?
I really don’t like what they did with this area. The “elevated structure” looks oddly out of place and the entire point of food trucks is to offer unique roving food options. Having them in a centralized spot defeats the purpose all together, especially if they are always consistent. Seems unnecessary to go to Disney to eat at medicore food trucks…
I’m not a huge fan of Disney’s current “we must outsource everything,” but if this was a concept they were intent on doing, they should have worked with the most famous food truck purveyors to create localized versions (i.e. Kogi in LA), which would provide a unique and regional experience.
That pot roast looked good to me! I will like to see what becomes of this area. It will surely continue to change. Thanks for the post.
I couldn’t tell from your pictures or description…has the elevator to the “elevated structure” been installed? Or is there no way to get up on the “high line” style structure? If not, do you think this will be coming in the future? I thought it was a neat feature when I first heard about it. Would be a shame if they scrapped the idea.
Does look a bit odd with the overhead structure. Hope it all ties in later.
Anyone know where I can get the menu’s for all the trucks?
We were disappointed that circumstances prevented us from trying the food trucks at DTD, but while we were staying at Music recently, we did use the one there for a quick breakfast. Not gourmet, but the huge croissants filled with folded scrambled eggs, cheese and bacon were big enough for a hearty breakfast. We used our (free) QSDP meal credits for the croissants and orange juice as we had plenty left due to eating more TS this trip. They also had mini-waffles with strawberries, kielbasa with grilled onions and gravy on biscuits, and bottled sodas and water. Take your refillable mug to the temporary dining area for coffee and you have a decent breakfast.
I’m a little underwhelmed. What in the world were they working on so long?
Love the concept of food trucks, and I’ll be especially pleased if local food truck do become a staple alongside the 4 Disney trucks. I’m not sure why food trucks seem to equate to café tables in Disney’s eyes, but I’m relieved to see they’ve added at least some regular tables. It doesn’t look to be a lot of them, though. I’m betting it’s going to be difficult to get a table during busy times.
I was honestly expecting a larger seating area, thinking that was the whole purpose of a food truck court. I’d have loved to see something similar to the seating area in the Sunset Blvd section of Hollywood Studios; the one between Anaheim Produce, Rosie’s, Catalina Eddie’s, and Fairfax Fair.
Kelly – Hi! The Food Truck Park itself is a permanent structure, but the trucks that are present may rotate (for instance, on the day of my visit, the Fantasy Fare truck was elsewhere). All of the Disney Food Trucks accept dining plan credits (1 quick service credit per meal :). Hope you can check it out on your next trip!
Diane — The elevator hasn’t been installed, at least not at this point. Not sure if there are plans for it to be added eventually, but will be keeping an eye out :).
Joni — I’ve added a menu pic to the post (you can click on it to enlarge) — I meant to include it before, but totally blanked! Thanks for the reminder!
Meh. I was really excited when I heard the theme of these trucks but the menus aren’t really all that inspired. The “Best of the Food & Wine Festival” is more like the most basic and boring of the festival: kielbasi and sliders? C’mon! And the “Magic Kingdoms Around the World” truck has 2 items already available in the Florida MK and none of the cool interesting stuff from Tokyo. I was all set to make it a point to get to this on my next trip but I think I’ll be skipping it now.
NT3 — They change up the menus quite regularly. Stay tuned!
We visited one of the trucks late summer and loved what we ordered. We are looking forward to visit the new spot and the other trucks next year!
HI!! Always enjoy reading your articles!!! I too, would like to know if the food trucks take the Disney Dinning Plan-maybe a Quick Service???? Thanks!!!
I visited the food trucks this weekend and the menu choices seemed underwhelming to me at first; however, after choosing the grass-fed sliders for an early-evening dinner, I had to return for another serving as a late-night snack. Besides having great flavor and generous portions (it truly was satisfying), I was pleased with the relatively short lines and the food being cooked-to-order. I’ll definitely be back.
The rap needs to stop. People are trying to enjoy dinner at bongos and they’re assaulted by the free style and dj music.
Inquiring on how to bring our Food Truck to the Food Truck Park
Carlos, you’ll want to try to contact Disney World directly. You can try using these numbers, but I’m not sure which will be most helpful. Sorry!