Review: Let’s Eat All the Ice Cream and Pretend Plaza Ice Cream Parlor is Open in Disney World
We’re back to visit one of Magic Kingdom’s classic restaurants, The Plaza Restaurant on Main Street, U.S.A.!
Plaza
This sit-down restaurant has a lot going for it but often gets forgotten! They serve up reasonably-priced classic cozy comfort dishes (including ice cream sundaes!), has a bright and airy dining room, and a primo view of Cinderella Castle! Even WE forget this Main Street establishment is there at times. So we decided to visit and see what’s going on at this small cozy spot with a killer view.
Head to the end of Main Street and look to your right. Here — under normal circumstances — is the ever-popular Plaza Ice Cream Parlor. This spot has remained closed ever since the parks reopened BUT, what hasn’t been closed is the other half of the Plaza experience you can find just around the corner — the Plaza Restaurant.
Plaza Entrance
That’s where we’re eating today!
Atmosphere
You’ll find that entrance, as we mentioned, around the corner of Main Street. The front door faces the Hub and Cinderella Castle. There’s not a ton in the way of seating outside (you’re kind of just standing in a less heavily trafficked walkway between Main Street and Tomorrowland), but that view can’t be beat:
Hello, gorgeous
We checked in for our reservation with Mobile Dine Check-In. A sign at the entrance can be scanned to check-in or you can do so via a pop-up notification from the My Disney Experience app.
Plaza Check In
We used our very brief (like, VERY. We were seated maybe one minute after checking in!) wait to check out a Cavalcade making its way down Main Street.
Hey guys!
A menu is posted outside, if you’d like to scan your options before heading in. Like many other Disney restaurants that have reopened, The Plaza currently has a reduced menu.
Plaza Menu
The restaurant is broken into 2 sections — the main dining room and the rotunda. We love the vibe of this place! It’s very vintage, with old-timey wallpaper, lots of mirrors, and Victorian-style decorations. We still adore those light fixtures too! Basically, it’s right at home on Main Street, U.S.A.!
Plaza Dining Room
Tables are spread out according to social distance guidelines, and it was very quiet on our visit. Even with there being more open space, this restaurant is teeny tiny. If you’ve never been, you may wonder where the rest of it is when you walk in!
Plaza Restaurant
We were lucky enough to be seated in the rotunda room (our hostess said it was her favorite place to seat guests!), and it was loaded with sunlight and had great views of Main Street!
Rotunda Room
This room has a killer view of Cinderella Castle that we didn’t mind enjoying while we dined. But, heads up, this room is shockingly quiet (as in lacking ambient noise). Like, “we learned a lot about the other people in this room” type too quiet. Last time we sat in here, we had a similar experience. If you want a more private meal, maybe consider asking to sit in the main room! But the view was still fantastic!
Beautiful view!
The Plaza is utilizing both a QR code and paper menus.
QR Menu
In case you couldn’t read the outside menu above, here are all the goods you have to choose from. The menu was unchanged from our last visit since the reopening aside from the seasonal soup (it was Turkey Noodle on this visit, FYI). The Loaded Fries (AKA Figaro Fries!) are still here…
The Plaza Restaurant Menu
…and the Entree choices are small but mighty.
The Plaza Restaurant Menu
Kids’ meals here are pretty standard.
Kids’ Menu
Plus a small selection of desserts are available (more on these in a bit!).
The Plaza Restaurant Menu
Also, aside from your standard non-alcoholic beverages, The Plaza serves beer and wine like all Magic Kingdom sit-down restaurants in recent years.
Beer and Wine
Enough of the chit-chat, let’s get to the food!
Eats
Like we mentioned, the menu is very small right now. But, we found a few noshy items! First up, once we were seated we were brought glasses of ice water (with a little cup of lemons, which was a nice touch!) and cutlery wrapped in paper napkins.
Water!
We ordered the White Sangria for $11. It was described as made with Kunde Sauvignon Blanc, pineapple juice, spices, and fruit. This tasted, like most Magic Kingdom Sangrias we’ve experienced, not surprisingly…premade. We didn’t really pick up on that pineapple juice or spices TBH! It mostly just tasted like sweet fruit juice.
White Sangria
The fruit garnishes seemed like an afterthought. Our glass was less sangria or ice and mostly slices of canned peaches! For color (though probably not what they were going for since it didn’t look the most appetizing) a scoop of thawed previously frozen raspberries was on top too.
We wanted to like this. We really did. Sipping our sangria looking at Cinderella Castle sounds like a dream, right? For the price though, the lack of flavor and weirdly mostly (not appetizing) fruit made it not worth it for us. Maybe sip some beer or wine instead? 
White Sangria, not the greatest!
We started with the Plaza Loaded Fries for $9, because DUH. These have been a DFB favorite for oodles of time for good reason! They sound so simple (they are) but we swear they’re so so good. These are your standard Disney “fast food fries” covered in Boursin cheese sauce (our waiter made a point to specifically mention that it was Boursin SEVERAL times ). They are then topped with lettuce, diced tomatoes, and bacon.
Plaza Loaded Fries!
This is just downright delightful! The cheese sauce was super flavorful and was definitely not your normal melted cheese. On past visits, this was our beloved plastic cheese so the “upgraded” cheese sauce was a surprise. It was the bomb, BUT..there was hardly any on the fries! More cheese, please! Seriously, why are we not making more stuff out of Boursin cheese?? The lettuce and tomato were fresh but a bit sparse. Basically, we could have used more toppings across the board.
OLD Loaded Plaza Fries came with a Ranch drizzle on top (making them much more like the old Figaro Fries of days gone by from Pinocchio Village Haus) but the Ranch isn’t listed on the menu anymore. We, of course, asked for a side of Ranch for our own drizzling. Our waiter happily obliged.
Yummy fries!
For the price, this is about the size of a side of fries you would get with a burger (which is to say…we’d have happily enjoyed a heftier serving). The toppings do all the heavy lifting here but those were, as we mentioned, on the skimpier side. Overall, it’s still a great app we definitely recommend you give a try!
We ordered two entrees, the Philly Cheesesteak Sandwich for $19 and the Plaza Burger for $22. The cheesesteak had more Boursin cheese sauce (our waiter made a point to tell us this as well!). This sandwich was huge! Easily shareable between two people. The side choices for all entrees were fries, fruit, green beans, or mashed potatoes. We gave the mashers a go with this entree.
Philly Cheesesteak Sandwich
The bread was a chewy french roll (gimme dat soft bread) and there was a lot of flavorful shaved beef, bell peppers, and onions. It wasn’t mind-blowing, but was surprisingly good given the location. Philadelphia natives may be disappointed, as it’s not super authentic, but it had a good flavor and was a satisfying meal. Plus, cheese sauce. Ask for extra cheese sauce!
Surprisingly tasty!
The mashed potatoes were surprisingly flavorful. We weren’t expecting much, but we found ourselves scooping up every bit of them. They tasted like fresh potatoes and had enough garlicky seasoning to keep them interesting.
Moving on to the Plaza Burger. This comes topped with lettuce, tomato, cheddar cheese, and honey-barbecued beef brisket. We’ve had this guy before, but it was much more “done up” than it was this time. Previously, you’d get a mini-mountain of brisket, bacon, Provolone cheese, sauteed onions, and lettuce and tomato. Knowing what this burger HAS been versus what it is now left us, well, disappointed.
Plaza Burger Meal
The burger was WET from the lettuce and tomato, and was also simultaneously greasy from the brisket (how can something be watery and greasy at the same time?). The bun was nicely toasted and soft, but it was doing all it could to stay together! It was a bit of a drippy mess to eat.
Plaza Burger
The brisket used to be the star of the show here but now was largely unnecessary and quite greasy. It resembled sloppy joe filling more than it did the shredded and heavily sauced brisket we enjoyed the last time we had this burger. It was tossed in a (very) little amount of BBQ sauce. We weren’t asked for a preferred doneness, and it was cooked pretty much to well done. That said, the meat was still juicy.
Plaza Burger
As for our side here, we asked for the fresh fruit. A side of fresh fruit typically makes us imagine a cup of mixed fruit but we were instead given green apple slices and red grapes. The grapes were fresh but green apples were honestly kind of meh. Save those green apples for dunking in caramel and lots of chocolate and other goodies over at the Main Street Confectionery. Honestly, this felt like a fruit side in a kids’ meal. Definitely go for the mashed potatoes or fries. Carbs will never steer you wrong!
A very sad side…
Overall, the burger tasted fine. Knowing how flavorful this burger was previously with the onions, cheese, and both brisket AND bacon left it pretty underwhelming in its current form. It’s definitely not a destination burger by any means, but it is an easy and safe choice.
Now on to what many will consider the star of the show: ice cream. Plaza Ice Cream Parlor may be closed, but you can still order up all that ice cream goodness if you eat in the restaurant. Our server let us know the flavors available and the selection sounded largely unchanged from what you’d find previously at the ice cream counter. He told us they could make up any combination they had on hand to fit your liking. So if you don’t see what you’re after — just ask! You never know.
We ordered a (not overly creative) chocolate ice cream sundae! We asked for a scoop of chocolate with caramel and hot fudge. It was served with whipped cream and a cherry. Our server asked if we’d like walnuts on top (yes, please!) and even brought out a ramekin of extra in case we wanted more. It was a pretty big portion for $7!
Chocolate Sundae
If you are missing Plaza Ice Cream, this is sure to make you happy! It had all of the classic sundae flavors. Our one critique was the toppings were pumped in the glass first, making you have to dig deep to get to all that caramel and fudgy goodness! (That didn’t stop us!) Either way, we were eating Plaza Ice Cream overlooking Cinderella Castle again. That’s a good thing!
Nosh or Not
Take a break at this Main Street, U.S.A. spot if:
- You waited too long to get a reservation at one of the more popular spots in Magic Kingdom. Plaza often has last-minute availability.
- You want the experience of eating ON Main Street. With Casey’s Corner still closed, this is your only real way to eat on the main drag of Magic Kingdom overlooking the Castle.
- You are looking for simple, approachable food.
Check out one of the other table-service options at Magic Kingdom if:
- You are looking for a more interesting dining experience. The turn of the century atmosphere is pretty but, compared to other spots in Magic Kingdom, more on the subdued side.
- You want a quiet, romatice meal. With fewer people at tables (especially in that rotunda) it’s so quiet you hear e-ver-e-thing.
- You’re interested in more unique eats. The food here is simple and comforting, but not exactly stuff many would seek out (maybe except for those fries!).
Overall
Plaza is a classic. With the decor in here you can’t help but feel surrounded by that Main Street, U.S.A. vibe. We’ve had a number of good visits here in the past and will continue to return. That said, our visit at the Plaza wasn’t outstanding, but it was still enjoyable. We suspect the smaller-than-normal menu and, hopefully, an off day in the kitchen contributed to our somewhat lackluster meal.
The food on our visit didn’t seem to hold up to the memory of our past visits. The Loaded Fries are still great, but missing toppings and smaller than we remembered. Similarly, the burger was OK, but missing toppings we enjoyed in the past. For $22, that’s a fair chunk of change to shell out for a wholly “meh” burger. Especially considering for roughly the same price you could choose from a wide selection of quality meal options at another favorite Magic Kingdom spot, Jungle Navigation Co. Ltd Skipper Canteen over in Adventureland. That’s not to say things were bad here or that the food won’t bounce back as the menu returns. It just didn’t knock our socks off this time.
You come to Plaza for the ambiance just as much as you would for a good meal — and the ambiance still delivers. We’ve had so many good experiences here in the past (remember the good ol’ days pre-2020 when a Citizen of Main Street would often pop in here around lunch time?) and will continue to return. But for now, we’re content enjoying our ice cream sundae (pretending Plaza Ice Cream Parlor is open) and smallish plate of Loaded Fries admiring the gorgeous view of the Castle.
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