We are headed into The Land Pavilion in Walt Disney World’s Epcot today for one of our favorite character meals at Garden Grill Restaurant!
This spot may feel a little dated in a way…but we prefer to think of it as retro. 😉 Disney’s (Orlando’s!!) only rotating restaurant is still tops for the coolness factor of the, you know, rotation. I can remember going to this restaurant when I was a little kid — it was fancy-pants back then (with sculpted Mickey butter!), but the nostalgia factor is high here for Epcot babies. Add in some pretty delicious food, and you’re doing even better. AND then — characters! Even Mickey! So it’s probably sort of easy to see why we like it.
Recently, our Dining in Disneyland expert and friend of DFB Heather Sievers travelled to Walt Disney World for a visit. Among their many culinary adventures, her family opted to visit Garden Grill Restaurant for breakfast one morning.
Let’s tag along and see how it went!
Atmosphere
is located within The Land Pavilion in Epcot’s Future World West.
The Land Pavilion
This building is a serious multitasker. You’ll find three different attractions housed here: Soarin, Living with the Land, and The Circle of Life. All have different entrances, which are accessible as you travel down ramps circling either side of the round building’s perimeter.
The Land Ceiling and Its Pretty Balloons
In addition to the attractions, there are also two restaurants. While Sunshine Seasons occupies the ground floor (and offers up some of our favorite Disney World counter service eats), Garden Grill is located on the pavilion’s second floor.
Garden Grill Sign
Step back a bit and watch closely, and you can see the restaurant slowly rotating as diners enjoy their meals while interacting with characters.
Garden Grill Wide View
You can get a feel for what the restaurant offers just by glancing at the sign. Chip ‘N Dale’s Harvest Feast is an all you care to enjoy meal that you can book for breakfast, lunch, or dinner.
Entrance with Menu and Information
We’ll take a closer look at the menu in a minute. In the meantime, let’s have a look around.
Tables are arranged in stadium seating on two rows around the restaurant, and one is slightly higher than the other. Tables on the top tier are your garden variety rectangular tables, like this one.
Table and Seating
Lower tables are actually curved booths with a front row seat to the passing landscape.
Booth Seating Facing The Land Attraction
You may also notice a familiar “face” when you are seated! Ah, those clever Cast Members. Always makin’ the magic.
Plate and Bowl Mickey!
So — back to that whole rotating thing. What exactly are guests looking at as they dine? An ever changing landscape, thanks to the Living with the Land attraction below.
Garden Grill Mural
As you rotate — a journey that takes about an hour — you’ll see a Farmhouse Scene as well as Desert and Rainforest habitats.
Farmhouse Scene in Living with the Land
Rainforest
Living with the Land as seen from Garden Grill
Transition from Rainforest to Desert
And that takes us to Garden Grill’s second claim to fame — Characters! The feast is hosted by mischevious (and completely adorable) chipmunks, Chip ‘n Dale.
Chip
Dale
But they’ve also brought a few other friends to the party! Guests can also catch a photo with Pluto.
Pluto
And Mickey is on board as well! How much do we LOVE his farmer togs?!?
Mickey Mouse
And that brings me to the third reason you go to Garden Grill: the Food. Let’s have a look.
Eats
vary at Walt Disney World. Some restaurants offer buffets, while others are plated, or all-you-care-to-enjoy meals. Garden Grill offers the latter. While this was a breakfast visit, you can also see an in-depth look at dinner (which is so SO good) in our review here. (Note that they’ve switched out the fish for sausage these days.)
Menu and Information — Up Close
Here’s a closer look at the offerings. It’s also interesting to note that, while non-alcoholic beverages are included with your meal, you can also add a Mimosa or Bloody Mary. And did you notice the menu note that Disney now offers cage-free eggs?
Menu — Click to Enlarge
To punctuate that “Down on the Farm” feelin’, beverages come in Mason Jars.
Beverages — Water and Juice, Served in Jars
And yay! POG Juice! This favorite drink — a combo of Passion Fruit, Orange, and Guava — goes by many names around Disney. So if you enjoy Jungle Juice at Animal Kingdom or Lilikoi Juice at the Polynesian, then get this. It’s the same thing.
POG Juice and Menu Details
Soon after the drinks arrived, the food started rolling in. Keep in mind the group was four strong, so that helps you to see what portions sizes looked like for a party of this size. But also remember that you can always get more of anything you’d like.
Fresh Fruit with Sticky Bun Bake
They started with a beautiful and healthy Fruit Salad, full of Melon, Grapes, and Berries.
Fresh Fruit — Up Close
Yay for healthy! Because then, you get to dig into THIS. Check out the glorious Chip’s Sticky Bun Bake. Yes. I said “Sticky Bun Bake.” Who doesn’t want to eat that?
Chip’s Sticky Bun Bake
The gooey pull-apart treat arrives warm to your table, and provides plenty of sweet carbs to fuel you for a full day of Disney fun.
And if you can’t wait to have your own, then check out our Sticky Bun Bake Recipe and make it at home!
Chip’s Sticky Bun Bake — Up Close
But stand by, because more food is coming! In fact, get ready for the main event: the Breakfast Family Skillet!
Family Skillet
This iron skillet contains all of the ingredients to make for a GREAT breakfast. Top of the list: Mickey Waffles! In this shot, you can also see hearty helpings of Bacon and Scrambled Eggs.
And oh, hey, that little ramekin? Warm Chocolate Hazelnut Sauce. Now, that’s supposed to be for your waffles. But you’re gonna see in a minute that there are LOTS of uses for it.
You’re gonna need more of that stuff. I promise.
Mickey Waffles, Bacon, and Scrambled Eggs — Up Close
To the right, you’ll see Tater Tots (!!!!!!!) and Link Sausage.
Tater Tots and Sausage — Up Close
And here’s a look at Heather’s plate — complete with a side of requested-and-granted Salsa! 😀
My Plate
So, back to the Warm Chocolate Hazelnut Sauce. Heather managed to leave it in the center of the skillet — you’re welcome, Heather’s family — but it came in handy for all kinds of dippin’ needs. Time to get our Sweet Salty craving out of the way.
Tater Tots + Nutella. Who knew?? (Can we just call it Nutella for a while, please?) That sounds awesome!!
Dipping My Tater Tots in Warm Chocolate Hazelnut Sauce
But then — BACON + Nutella. YESSSSS.
Dipping My Bacon in the Warm Chocolate Hazelnut Sauce
They had their fill, and then some. And then they were off to enjoy a great day in Epcot.
Overall
Garden Grill remains a universal DFB Favorite. It’s such a great sum of its total parts. I mean, you have a Rotating Restaurant (big coolness points), EPCOT Center-level nostalgia, plus Characters, PLUS tasty food! I mean, they had us at the POG Juice and Chip’s Sticky Bun Bake. But that skillet tooo? Yes, please.
And actually, the price is decent. You know, we’re big believers in making breakfast your main meal to save time and money. And when you can do that, plus interact with characters, you’re crossing several things off your Disney bucket list at once.
If you haven’t before, go ahead and take a chance on Garden Grill Restaurant. I think you’ll enjoy it.
Now, we’d love to hear from you! Is Garden Grill Restaurant one of your favorite stops in Walt Disney World? Leave a comment and let us know!
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We love the Garden Grill dinner, and would love to try the breakfast! By the way, there’s a hidden mickey in the mural!
That looks REALLY good!!! But it would cost $96+ for the three of us!!! We can’t afford to eat at WDW anymore. That’s really sad………. They’re pricing themselves out of reach of everyone except the rich. Walt must be spinning in his grave.
I have always wanted to try breakfast here! Tots, nutella, POG. OMG.
Went for dinner in September and was totally disappointed, the characters basically ignored us and only went to kids and the food wasn’t great, will never go back
They advertise using produce from ‘Living with the Land’, which I have toured and I can’t see anything they grow contributing to this menu.
Also, for $40 price PP, I would expect them to serve eggs any style.
Garden Grill is our absolute favorite restaurant at DW. The Berry Skillet Cake is the best ever. Everything was delicious. I’d love to try the breakfast there also.
We have been twice now and it’s definitely one of our favourites for several reasons:
1. We book an 8am ADR on a 9am park opening day. We eat, meet, pay and then run to Soarin’ to be first in the queue then save our fastpass for Test Track
2. Our two early bookings have meant the characters all came to our table twice as some tables were still empty.
3. We love the revolving restaurant and the changing view from, what feels like, a private booth.
4. We love the sticky bun bake, and the fact we don’t have to go get our food, and miss out of characters while away.
2 adults and 2 children, breakfast at $102. Absolutely ridiculous price!!! Take out a second mortgage on the house to go to WCW and Epcot for vacation!!!
I ate here once and while we enjoyed it, I mostly enjoyed the novelty of the scenes from the revolving aspect of it. I love that old farmhouse! As for the food, I’d much prefer the wonderful food of the Crystal Palace, for the money!
This is my family’s favorite character meal! It’s not chaotic like several other places, the food is good, you likely will see the characters more than once, and it’s one of the cheapest in park character meals.
I agree, with what you get, the price is way high…..but it looks so good and looks like a fun place to eat. Living with the land is one of my favorite rides. It would be fun to see some of it from a different angle.
WAY TO MUCH MONEY required for this. Ridiculous!!
The Garden Grill is one of my favorite restaurants. I’ve eaten here several times over the 25 plus years I’ve been going to WDW. I’ve never been disappointed. First, I’m glad to see they brought back the breakfast. Yes, it’s pricey but keep in mind it’s a character breakfast and the price is similar to other character breakfasts around WDW. The food grown in The Land is used at the Garden Grill but mostly at dinner. However, breakfast does have fruit grown in the EPCOT hydroponic greenhouses in The Land. I took the Behind the Seeds Tour once, it’s reasonably priced and full of lots of inside information. Back to breakfast….The sticky bun bake is one of my favorite things at WDW. It was so good I wanted to take the rest with me. Sadly, they do not have “to go” containers and can not give you any foil or plastic wrap BUT I was able to get two paper coffee cups with lids from the waitress and I carried them in my backpack the entire day! The next day, we had an awesome breakfast snack in our room, warmed in the microwave! That’s how good this bun is!!! We always made it a point to splurge a little on one character breakfast and then eat at counter service restaurants or in our room a morning or two to make up for it. Someone commented the characters ignored them. They are trained to make their way around to EVERYONE. If for some reason you are missed, a simple request to your waitress or waiter is all that’s needed in order to get the characters to come to your table before you leave. Hint: Ask for an outside table!
I have a solo reservation for the end of October and I’m very excited to experience this. Is it frowned up to bring your own ziplock bags? That looks like a lot of food for one person and with the Food and Wine Festival that day, I’m sure I’ll forget about breakfast until well after I get back to the hotel (off site) and wish I had a snack. Thank you for DFB; I am always looking for your updates.
Jessica, bring your own bag if you want! You paid for that food. 🙂