BIG pretzels? A bright, sunny dining room? Warm, savory snacks? We’re IN. You coming?

We’ve been on a mission to visit some of those “off the beaten path” restaurants in Disney World, and today, we’re headed to Disney’s Coronado Springs Resort! You’ll find some fun spots to eat around this hotel, like Barcelona Lounge and Siesta’s Cantina Pool Bar. But this time, we’re headed to the quick-service location at this big resort. Is this spot worth visiting? Let’s find out!

 

El Mercado de Coronado is the resident quick-service restaurant at Disney’s Coronado Springs Resort. Inside, you’re treated to an open dining room adorned with high ceilings, bright skylights, and colorful furniture pieces that really give a homey touch.

Inside you’ll find multiple food stations featuring Tex-Mex options served alongside classic quick-service “go-to” menu items like pizza, pasta, burgers, and chicken strips. When you’re ready to wind down your meal, there’s even several pastry and baked goods options for dessert!

Atmosphere

Now that you know a little bit about the vibe here, it’s easy to see how this quick-service theme fits so nicely within the Spanish influence found throughout not only the restaurants and dining experiences here, but the rest of the hotel as well.

If you’re not familiar with where to find El Mercado de Coronado, once you see the colorful decor, it’s hard to miss it. This restaurant is neighbored by the Rix Cafe on the opposite side of the hallway and just a short walk away from the Maya Grill at the opposite end of the main building.

Once you move past the iron gate entrance, you’re instantly dropped into the open dining area, where you’ll find ample seating areas in booth-style seats…

…standalone tables and chairs…

…and a few hightop tables that can be shared between multiple families or large groups of people.

Towards the center of the space, you’ll find the beverage stations, which are built for fountain beverages…

…as well as hot coffees, tea, and hot chocolate.

If you look around, you’ll find several self-service stations for plastic utensils and napkins to pick up at your leisure.

And just beyond the vast dining room, you’ll find the grab ‘n go section with cold selections, bagged and portioned sides, and bottled drinks.

Adjacent from there, you’ll see the multiple food stations we mentioned before where you’re able to walk up and place your order.

This might be a little overwhelming to see at first, but once you’ve had time to scope out the foods you want to order, it’s a fairly easy process.

Menu

All this talk of ordering food has made us hungry, but we almost forgot to talk about what’s available on the menu at this restaurant! To start us off, there’s a souvenir refillable mug to keep you hydrated during your vacation and a few handheld options…

…a few choices of sides and a build your own bowl station.

The food order lines are split up into categories like Tex-Mex Entrees & King Knot Pretzels…

…Pastas…

…a few kid’s selections and grab and go options…

… as well as an extensive array of desserts, pastries…

…and snacks.

Whew, that’s quite the selection. How do you choose from it all?

Eats

Once we had time to look through our order and narrow down our options (because there were just so many we wanted to try out), we were able to settle on just a few to give you a well-rounded look at what awaits you here. We opted for the Buffalo Chicken Sandwich and Chicken Parmesan and couldn’t help but pick up both the Pepperoni and Cinnamon Pretzels. Yeah, that’s A LOT of food!

We figure the best way to tackle this meal is in small doses, so let’s start with the smallest dish of this review. We grabbed the Chicken Parmesan for $18. This entree is made of fried chicken breast topped with melted mozzarella cheese and served over penne pasta tossed in marinara sauce. There’s also a garlic knot to accompany your dish.

This one didn’t exactly hit a home run for us! The crispy chicken breast had a thin outer breaded coating that was almost buttery against the noodles and sauce, which had good flavor on its own. The chicken inside was tender and felt more like true chicken meat than a processed patty. However, that’s where the good news about this dish kind of just stops.

The noodles appear to be kept separate from the marinara sauce until it comes time to prepare the dish. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, it just hinted that we shouldn’t have expected much flavor from the pasta noodles since they were newly mixed with the rest of the spices blended within the sauce. The noodles were very flexible but truly had very little taste to them outside of just the regular, bland pasta taste. They definitely needed the help from the rest of what was mixed into the dish to help it out, but in a pinch, we could see this being a decent option.

It’s also served with a single garlic knot that was oily and garlicky in all the right places and was such a welcomed addition to what we felt we were missing from this dish by itself.

Next up it was time to try out the Buffalo Chicken Sandwich! This dish costs $16 and is made of grilled or crispy chicken breast dipped in garlic buffalo hot sauce, topped with blue cheese dressing, lettuce, tomato, onions, and served with your choice of a side — in our case, this one came with a side of fries.

We almost had to admit defeat over this one! Y’all — this one is spicy and knows how to bring the HEAT! Our reporter openly admitted their immense love for buffalo sauce, but this one was extra spicy. OK, without being overly dramatic, the spicy heat you’ll get from this one was around a medium range; our reporter likened it to just about the same spiciness you would get from Chick-fil-A’s buffalo sauce.

It’s served with fries, which are fairly standard across Disney World properties in terms of taste and size, but these are thicker-cut fries than what most quick-service restaurants typically serve.

The chicken in the sandwich tastes similar to the chicken patty we had in the Chicken Parmesan dish, however, it’s completely saturated in spicy sauce. The blue cheese dressing you’ll find in the top half of the sandwich tastes more like a ranch dressing and is almost overpowered by the buffalo sauce. The sandwich we picked up didn’t come with any vegetables like the menu suggests, so if those are important to your sandwich, you’ll want to be aware that they’re supposed to be dressed with lettuce, tomato, and onion.

Then it was time to really up the ante — and this time, we were going big! We kicked off the home stretch of our review by digging into the Pepperoni Pretzel. First, we literally had to stare at this thing for a few minutes because we were in awe of its size.

We’ve seen some jumbo pretzels before in Disney’s Animal Kingdom, but they look like ants compared to how completely oversized these pretzels are! This one will cost you $21 and it will also come with marinara sauce to dip your pretzel pieces into. It’s topped with garlic butter, mozzarella cheese, and cupping pepperoni topped with parmesan parsley.

After we picked our jaws up off the floor, we decided it was time to tackle this beast of a pretzel! Obviously, there’s a lot of dough here, and we were READY to take a bite.

The pepperoni was decently spiced with a low heat, but it gave a great salty and savory snack vibe big enough for multiple people to split and share.

We’ve gotta be brutally honest with you, though. This has a hefty price tag, and if you’re really wanting to get to it at its best, we recommend digging into it almost as soon as you get it to the table because it just didn’t hit the same way after it had sat for a little while we ate the other dishes in our meal.

If you’re into sweeter treats, you might be one to order the Cinnamon Pretzel instead. There is a bit of a price difference with this version. This is a sugar, cinnamon, and buttered pretzel available for $19. This one also is served with cream cheese icing, caramel, and chocolate sauce.

This one really threw our reporter for a loop. As much as they wanted to like the pepperoni version more, the cinnamon came out on top! Sure, the base pretzel is the same as the other; however, the cinnamon sugar was lightly coated around the pretzel in the perfect way.

As it started to cool off, the butter and sugar started the crystalize and flake off together, kind of like what you would experience with doughnut icing!

This gave us the impression that the butter brushed all over the pretzel before the cinnamon sugar was added truly was the tie that bound this treat together. However, it was made even more excellent when you were able to dip it into the sweet sauces waiting for you on the sidelines.

Overall

Overall, wrapping up our meal here left us feeling a bit indifferent. On one hand, we were thrilled to have found such unique eats in these ginormous pretzels. That said, not all of the food we ate was spectacular.

Admittedly, we were a bit disappointed by the lack of more Tex-Mex cuisine offerings available at such a popular hotel; however, in fairness, we did stop by for a late lunch when some of those more authentic dinner options weren’t offered yet.

Nosh or Not?

We think you should find your way over if…

• Anything goes for you in the moment! This restaurant seems to be a hodge podge of the selections you can get here so if you’re not quite sure what you’re hungry for yet and feel like deciding when you get there, this is a great place.
• You’ve got multiple pallets to please. While this almost goes hand in hand with our first point, if you’ve got people who want to eat completely opposite styles of meals and you’re looking for one place to do it all, you really can have it all here!
• You’re looking to feed a large group on a budget. This is a quick-service restaurant at its core. Since it’s located in one of Disney World’s well-known hotels for conventions and large groups, it knows how to get folks in and out in a hurry and stay as budget-friendly as possible in the process.

The winds are calling you elsewhere if…

• Just because you CAN have it all doesn’t mean you want it. Sometimes too much variety in a choice can overcomplicate your ordering process so if that sounds like you, you might want to consider other restaurants.
• You’re looking for more authentic food at this hotel. While this hotel truly is a sight to behold, this restaurant is set up to offer more Americanized meals than they served when this location was formerly known as the Pepper Market.
•  You want to be taken care of while you’re dining. The type of service you’re looking for will determine this. If you’re looking for a plated meal option with a server who will come around and assist you, consider the neighboring restaurants.

We’ve eaten at every restaurant across Disney World and we’re constantly updating our reviews! Check out a few of our most recent in the links below and stay tuned with us to see what food, snacks, and treats we’re reviewing next right here at DFB!

REVIEW: There’s a Reason We Keep Coming Back to This Disney Springs Restaurant

Did we just blow your Disney-loving minds with these GIGANTIC pretzels? Tell us who you’d share them with in the comments below!