Walt Disney World has confirmed that one other restaurant at Disney’s BoardWalk Resort will likely be going out of enterprise in 2024, the third such everlasting closure in the course of the phased reopening. This publish shares dates & particulars, together with the interim substitute deliberate for the ‘Showplace of the Shore’ alongside Crescent Lake.
Let’s begin with the meat of the story, which is that Big River Grille & Brewing Works can have its closing day of operations on January 21, 2024. The restaurant will finish its practically three-decade run and be completely closed as of January 22, 2024. To the perfect of my data, Big River is a gap day BoardWalk unique, and first opened in 1996. (I’d be stunned if it’s modified a lot since then.)
For those that had been unfamiliar with it, which I’m guessing is numerous you because it was by no means notably busy, Big River Grille & Brewing Works was the one working brewpub at Walt Disney World. The third social gathering desk service restaurant served American bar fare, akin to barbecued ribs and burgers. Big River had a moderately giant indoor eating room together with a waterfront outside patio.
Most notably, Big River Grille & Brewing Works had a big menu of award-winning, handcrafted ales and lagers brewed on the premises. Favorites included the Big River I.P.A and the seasonal Sweet Magnolia American Brown Ale. An intensive number of wines, margaritas and specialty cocktails are additionally out there. Guests might additionally watch the onsite brewmaster craft 5 specialty beers by means of floor-to-ceiling glass home windows.
Big River Grille & Brewing Works was one of many slower to return eating places at Walt Disney World in the course of the phased reopening, opening its doorways once more in February 2021 after an almost year-long closure. While gradual by the requirements of WDW as an entire, it arguably outperformed the typical at BoardWalk, which misplaced ESPN Club and Ample Hills Creamery on the opposite finish of the promenade.
On this finish, Jellyrolls and Atlantic Dance Hall appear to be hanging on by a thread, which was the case even previous to the occasions of March 2020. Meanwhile, Trattoria al Forno is doing simply positive on the opposite facet, however its beloved Bon Voyage Character Breakfast has but to return.
For the final year-plus, Walt Disney World has been enterprise a quasi-reimagining or refresh to the BoardWalk, which has already included the additions of BoardWalk Ice Cream (substitute for Ample Hills) and BoardWalk Deli (substitute for BoardWalk Bakery). Other stuff has occurred contained in the foyer and visitor rooms, all of which is past the scope of this publish.
Next up is Blue Ribbon Corn Dogs, which is a small however beloved fast service spot. Then comes the large one–The Cake Bake Shop, which can perhaps/hopefully open someday in 2024 because the everlasting substitute for ESPN Club. All of that is related as context to the commentary beneath, which discusses the viability of companies on the BoardWalk.
Word first emerged on social media that Big River Grille & Brewing Works goes out of enterprise, through a discover despatched by the third social gathering restauranteur to its workers. Between that, notifying them that the restaurant could be closing in just a few days’ time, and Walt Disney World seemingly being caught flat-footed by the information, it’s fairly clear that this was not preplanned and coordinated. It was, nonetheless, a very long time coming. We’re actually stunned Big River lasted so long as it did.
Obviously, there’s no phrase but on any plans for a everlasting substitute for Big River Grille & Brewing Works. Frankly, we wouldn’t anticipate to listen to something from Walt Disney World for months. It wouldn’t shock me the least if there’s no announcement till 2025.
In the meantime, Walt Disney World has indicated {that a} rotating number of meals vehicles will supply lunch choices at Disney’s BoardWalk Inn beginning February 22, 2024. I’m a bit stunned even by this, so maybe I’m being too pessimistic with my prediction of no information on a Big River substitute this yr.
It’ll be attention-grabbing to see what replaces Big River Grille & Brewing Works in the long run. If we’re eager about this logically, what makes probably the most sense is one other brewery. A sports activities bar & grille that’s like a mixture between Big River and ESPN Club could be excellent, and fill an important function that’s now conspicuously absent from this space.
There are numerous dads and different sports activities followers who take pleasure in watching “the big game,” and there’s not a fantastic choice for that that’s simply accessible from the parks. Big River Grille & Brewing Works is walkable from EPCOT and Disney’s Hollywood Studios, and in addition is inside Skyliner distance of a ton of resorts. A family-friendly(ish) sports activities bar makes numerous sense right here.
It’s form of unlucky that this didn’t occur just a few years in the past. Big River looks as if it’s been on life assist for ages, and there’s part of me that wonders whether or not Cake Bake Shop could be moving into right here and ESPN Club would nonetheless be working had Big River gone below again in the course of the closure when Ample Hills did.
Honestly, I’m extra questioning if something will change Big River Grille & Brewing Works, moderately than what. While it’s enjoyable to invest in regards to the potentialities, it’s most likely additionally value analyzing the fact that Disney’s BoardWalk isn’t the counterprogramming to Downtown Disney (now Disney Springs) that it was envisioned again within the Nineteen Nineties.
There are nonetheless occasions when BoardWalk is totally hoppin’, nevertheless it definitely isn’t an enormous hangout for locals. (Walt Disney World’s restrictive resort parking guidelines have seen to that!) Not solely has this space not lived as much as its full potential and doesn’t see the foot visitors wanted to maintain a restaurant row, however there already are numerous eating choices. BoardWalk, Yacht & Beach Club all have numerous choices, and that’s to not even point out Swan & Dolphin, Swan Reserve, the entire Skyliner resorts, or World Showcase.
While I feel the circumstances had been distinctive that led to the closures of Ample Hills and ESPN Club, I can’t assist however surprise if Walt Disney World goes to have a tough time luring one other third social gathering into this area. I assume it’s attainable that Disney will open its personal restaurant on this location, however that’s tough to see given every little thing else they’ve achieved (or not achieved) on the eating entrance within the final a number of years.
If you’re a 3rd social gathering with the choice of going into Disney Springs, World Showcase, or right here…which might you select? The Big River spot–on the ‘dead’ finish of BoardWalk–could be a very powerful promote for me. It would virtually need to be a novel and in style idea that is aware of it might probably rise above the placement, fill tables regardless, and would like the decrease hire. (Like the Cake Bake Shop!) But I’ve by no means been accountable for any tier of restaurant above a Subway sandwich store, so what do I do know.
On a private notice, most of my reminiscences of Big River Grille & Brewing Works are fuzzy however fond ones from the mid to late Nineteen Nineties and early aughts. This was the kind of restaurant that was proper up my household’s alley once I was rising up. Coming from a small city that acquired its first “big” restaurant (Applebee’s) the yr I left for school, we completely liked stuff like this. Big River, Planet Hollywood, All Star Cafe–these had been our go-tos. They had been novel and enjoyable, serving up large plates of approachable meals.
While I don’t purport to be an knowledgeable on this kind of factor, I’d say that Big River Grille & Brewing Works was forward of its time, for a time. Since then, time has handed it by. Stated in another way, Big River was a forward-thinking idea within the mid-90s earlier than the craft brewpub actually turned “a thing” you might discover in nearly any metropolis. The concept was an attention-grabbing one, however Big River didn’t evolve and keep recent. Which is exactly why, I assume, numerous you studying this–even Walt Disney World followers–can have by no means even heard of Big River, a lot much less dined right here.
While “researching” this text, I used to be going by means of the DTB archives making an attempt to determine when the heck was that we final dined at Big River Grille & Brewing Works. I appeared to recall being there a few occasions inside the final decade, however my photograph archive didn’t corroborate that. Then I discovered this tidbit in a visit report about, because it seems, our closing expertise at Big River:
After being seated [at Big River], I noticed this isn’t what I remembered. At all. Now I understand how Brian Williams feels, as a result of I remembered the setting being completely totally different. There’s no method that’s a results of the inside being redone within the interim–that inside was simply 10 years previous.
Anyway, we had been one in all 4 events in your complete restaurant, which might usually be good, besides we had been seated between two tables of households, each of which had crying youngsters. Families with crying youngsters don’t hassle me, notably at Walt Disney World, the place that comes with the territory.
However, I feel I communicate for actually your complete universe once I say that I don’t discover youngsters’s cries to be a harmonious melody. I assume dad and mom should agree with this, or else they’d encourage their youngsters to cry extra, as an alternative of much less.
The level being: if 85% of the tables in your restaurant are open, why on earth are you going to seat a pair with out children proper subsequent to 2 tables of crying children? I don’t care how the restaurant is split up for servers, that’s simply poor service.
We figured we’d simply ask to be re-seated when our server got here, however after that took an inordinate period of time, we began to re-evaluate what, precisely, had led us to Big River Grille. Clearly, my reminiscence of the place was suspect. Almost nobody else was right here. The decor would’ve been drained and dated by the requirements of a real-world strip mall in Pennsylvania. At this level, we simply determined to bail.
Big River Grille & Brewing Works, you’ll be missed. Not by me, however most likely by somebody. Like Ace Ventura Pet Detective (an all-time traditional), I’m completely proud of my fuzzy and fond–however most likely very rose coloured–reminiscences. There are some issues higher left prior to now, and for me, Big River is a type of.
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Your Thoughts
What do you consider Big River Grille & Brewing Works completely closing? Will you miss it or are you excited for no matter’s subsequent? Think that one thing will take its place on that finish of the BoardWalk anytime quickly? What could be your ultimate substitute for Big River? Expect different ideas on this finish of the BoardWalk to exit of enterprise sooner or later within the not-too-distant future? Do you agree or disagree with our evaluation? Any questions we may help you reply? Hearing your suggestions—even once you disagree with us—is each attention-grabbing to us and useful to different readers, so please share your ideas beneath within the feedback!