Featured Article Summary #107

The Sci-Fi Dine-In Theater Restaurant is a theme restaurant at Disney’s Hollywood Studios, modeled after a 1950s drive-in theater. It opened in May 1991, with booths designed to look like classic convertibles and servers who often act like carhops. Guests eat while watching a large screen that plays clips from 1950s and 1960s sci-fi movies. The restaurant serves American-style food, and it offers free popcorn, but its earlier playful menu names were later changed to sound more straightforward. The restaurant became extremely popular soon after opening, serving more than 2,200 people at peak times. Reviews are mixed—many people enjoy the fun atmosphere, while some feel the food is overpriced. The Sci-Fi Dine-In opened on April 20, 1991 on Commissary Lane and was designed with a strong “theme” focus, similar to the earlier 50’s Prime Time Café. It quickly became very popular, serving 1,500–2,000 meals per day within weeks and over 2,200 at peak periods within a year, and it used handheld devices to send orders to a kitchen printer. In 2003, character dining changed at Walt Disney World: Disney stopped Minnie Mouse character meals at Hollywood & Vine, and one report suggested the Sci-Fi Dine-In’s long customer lines were a contributing factor. The Sci-Fi Dine-In is a 1950s-style drive-in restaurant with booths shaped like classic convertibles, complete with chrome, whitewall tires, and speakers by each car. Inside, servers act like carhops (some even wear roller skates), and guests watch a continuous 47-minute loop of vintage science fiction and horror film clips on a big screen. The decor includes a starry fiber-optic ceiling, themed walls, and lots of movie posters and props, including special Star Wars events and breakfast during Star Wars Weekends. Guests typically stay about 50 minutes for lunch and just over an hour for dinner, with food served a few minutes after ordering. Meals run from late morning to the same time the park closes, and the menu stays the same all day, with full bar service and a limited wine selection (Disney Dining Plan accepted). The food is mostly classic American items such as milkshakes, sundaes, salads, ribs, wings, burgers, shrimp, fries, and steaks, plus vegetarian choices and larger-than-usual dessert portions. Some themed menu names were changed to more descriptive ones, popcorn used to be free (and a popcorn bisque was later removed), and the kitchen can sometimes prepare special requests in advance. In 2003, Thailand’s EGV Entertainment opened the EGV Drive-in Cafe in Bangkok, inspired by the Sci-Fi Dine-In after its CEO visited in 2000. He felt diners at the Sci-Fi Dine-In cared more about the food than the screen, so he aimed to blend movies and meals better, using classic cars for seating and showing full short films instead of looped clip reels. In 2014, NBCUniversal added a similar idea with the Bayliner Diner at Cabana Bay Beach Resort, also playing old movie footage on a loop.