When one thinks of The Walt Disney Company, they usually think of a massive multinational
empire.
They’d be right to think that because today, that’s what they are.
But that wasn’t always the case.
For all the cultural capital they’ve had over the decades, they were mostly just a
film studio and a couple of theme parks.
It wasn’t until the late 1980’s and 1990’s that Disney grew into what we see today.
During that period of growth Disney experimented with new and sometimes bizarre ideas.
Night clubs, cruise lines, timeshares, state fairs, sci-fi conventions, and, as it turned
out, even fast food.
Back in 1987 Disney introduced The Disney Store, a retail shop dedicated exclusively
to Disney related merchandise.
Over thirty years later the concept doesn’t sound that wild, but back in ‘87 it was
a bold venture.
Just three years earlier Disney was on the brink of being taken over, and yet Disney was willing to bet on the idea
that there was enough merch to fill a store, and more importantly that there was enough
demand for that merch to roll out a retail chain nation-wide.
It was a smart bet because as it turned out, there was plenty of demand for Disney merch
outside of the Disney parks.
For a time, brick and mortar stores often measured the success of their locations by
looking at the amount of revenue per square foot of their store.
By 1990 there were 49 Disney Stores across the country, and they were finding that while
the average specialty retailer was earning under $300 of revenue per square foot, Disney
was earning over twice that much.
So it wasn’t just a decent business decision, it was a hit.
But this was an era of explosive growth for The Walt Disney Company.
One new venture wasn’t enough.
They saw immense value in their characters and brands, and they felt that such a value
would allow them to jump into nearly any other industry, like say… fast food.
Commercial: We interrupt regular programming for this McDonald’s commercial break.
It’s McDonald’s delicious Big Mac sandwich!
It’s two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles and onions on a sesame
seed bun.
We now return you to your regular programming.
According to the 2001 Journal of Food Distribution Research, fast-food in the US in 1990 was
a seventy-four billion dollar a year industry, topping every other form of commercial foodservice
including traditional restaurants.
It made up 32% of all foodservice sales in the country.
In other words, it was a pretty lucrative business, and it was one that Disney was interested
in.
So Disney had an idea.
Why not get into the fast food game by tying it directly to their increasingly popular
retail stores?
Whether you had hungry shoppers going to the restaurant to eat and then wandering over
to the store or vise versa, the two businesses would hopefully support each other.
Beyond that, like the store and their other ventures, they could use the restaurant to
help promote upcoming films.
It was synergy, and Disney loved synergy.
Mickey’s Kitchen was going to be Disney’s attempt at tackling fast food the Disney way.
Beyond being excessively branded with Disney IP, they wanted to lean into a more health-focused
menu that would hopefully separate them from McDonald’s and Burger King, and align closer
with their clean Disney image.
The result was an… interesting lineup of food, which included items like:
The meatless Mickey Burger The lean-beef Goofy Burger
The Hot Diggity Dogs, which were turkey hot dogs
Pinocchio Pizza, which came in either the plain, veggie, or barbecue chicken variety.
Salads in Wonderland Soup-a-dee-doo-dah
The PB&J Handwich, which was a crepe stuffed with peanut butter, jelly, and banana.
It was called handwich, I guess because you hold it with your hands.
You know, unlike sandwiches which I guess you hold with your sands.
Figaro French Fries, which contained no sodium Donald Duck Juices
Bippity Boppity Beverages And Chicken in Saladocious, which was a chicken
salad dish that I guess was supposed to be a play on Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious?
The venue would also offer kids meals which went by the name of Mouseketeer Meals and
had three varieties: the Huey, the Dewey, and the Louie.
The Huey included a Goofy Burger, the Dewey featured a Hot Diggity Dog, and the Louie
included a PB&J Handwich.
They all also came with Piglet Corkscrew Fries.
The restaurant would also ban smoking from the get-go, which today doesn’t seem that notable.
However in 1990 it was a big deal.
For context, it wasn’t until 1994 that McDonald’s would ban smoking in their restaurants, and
by that point places like Burger King and Wendy’s were just experimenting with the
idea.
Disney decided to start with a test location at Montclair Plaza just east of Los Angeles.
They already had plans to open their 50th Disney Store there that spring, and the location
wasn’t too far from their Burbank headquarters.
On top of that, the mall was reportedly seeing around 20 million shoppers a year at that
point, so it seemed like the perfect location.
They leased an 11,000 square foot space, which was a considerable step up from the average
three to five thousand square feet that made up the average Disney store.
Mickey’s Kitchen would be able to accommodate up to 190 customers and the dining space itself
would be split into four different themed areas, including Tony’s Restaurant from
Lady and the Tramp, the 100-acre-woods of Winnie the Pooh, DuckTales, and the Mad Tea
Party from Alice in Wonderland.
Cast members at the restaurant would attend traditions, which was the same employee onboarding
program that cast members at the parks had to go through.
As far as Disney was concerned, they wanted a lunch trip to Mickey’s Kitchen to have
the same level of customer service that a vacation to Disney World did.
Like the Disney Store concept just years before, they were taking a shot at a new venture,
and it looked like it was going to be another success.
Even without advertising or promoting the Mickey’s Kitchen opening on April 28th,
over 25,000 people visited the restaurant that first day.
Reviews of the food itself weren’t spectacular but it didn’t seem to matter.
Kids were drawn in by the Disney theming.
Disney eventually predicted that the presence of a Mickey’s Kitchen would increase the
attached Disney Store’s business by 20%.
By that July, Disney was starting to think bigger when it came to the Disney Store, and
the fate of Mickey’s Kitchen was receiving some mixed messaging.
Disney President at the time, Frank Wells, stated that “We’ve got these terrific,
terrific Disney stores that are doing so well, and it wouldn’t surprise me that in a lot
of those stores we follow with a restaurant, Mickey’s Kitchen, as we’ve just recently
opened.
And it wouldn’t surprise me at all if we start to see a lot of those internationally
over the next few years.”
Yet at the same time the organization was trying to keep their expectations on the level.
They admitted that most Disney Stores wouldn’t have a Mickey’s Kitchen attached, and reiterated
that they were still in the testing phase of the concept and that it might be another
year before a second location would be opened.
That year eventually arrived, and in January of 1991 Disney announced that they’d be
opening a second Mickey’s Kitchen that May at the Woodfield Mall in Schaumburg, a suburb
of Chicago.
At 14,000 square feet, this location would be larger than the first, and it would similarly
feature four themed eating areas.
This time it was Alice in Wonderland’s Tea Party, Fantasia, Pinocchio, and Dumbo.
For the rest of 1991 things seemed fine.
Whenever the topic of Mickey’s Kitchen came up, Disney was vague on details but that was
nothing new for Disney.
They focused instead on the positive reception to the restaurants.
Kids apparently loved the theming.
So would 1992 see the opening of even more Mickey’s Kitchens, ushering in an era of
Disney branded fast food?
No.
In March of ‘92, without much warning, Disney announced that both test locations would be
closing and the concept would be dropped.
At first, Disney’s reasoning was the exact kind of corporate PR statement you’d expect.
Steve Burke, Executive VP of Disney Specialty Retail said that “We will continue to test
new concepts in the Disney Store, but as much as we like Mickey’s Kitchen, results to
date do not warrant the management attention required.”
Chuck Champlin, Disney spokesperson, was surprisingly a bit more forward when asked about the closings,
and said that guest feedback was positive, but they “barely broke even with Mickey’s
Kitchen.”
So instead, Disney decided to focus their efforts on expanding the Disney Store to more
locations across the country, and to other locations overseas.
All 60 cast members at the two Mickey’s Kitchens were offered jobs at their respective
Disney Stores.
And just like that, Mickey’s Kitchen was gone.
It was the result of two specific sets of conditions that, when paired together, made
it an easy choice.
The first was that Disney was entering an unfamiliar market that was already well established,
and for once they weren’t in a position to just coast in on the merits of their intellectual
property.
Yes, children loved Disney and so they’d have an easier time than a brand new fast
food chain, but they were still trying to compete with the likes of McDonald’s and
Burger King.
They were the newbies and they were facing off with a fast food behemoth that was serving
22 million customers every day in 52 countries around the globe.
At over ten years old, the Happy Meal was synonymous with children’s fast food.
There was no chance of them taking that top spot, and thanks to other well established
players in the market, second and even third place was probably out of the question.
Even if they went all-in on the concept they would be forced to constantly fight tooth
and nail to win over business from the bigger players.
As for the other set of conditions, they were a media giant that was experiencing a massive
rebound after almost losing everything in 1984.
They had just started an animation renaissance.
Their new studios were doing great.
The theme parks were experiencing a whole new level of growth.
On top of that they were seeing much more success in their other new business ventures,
including the Disney Store.
Simply put, any other company starting a brand new fast food chain would love the idea of
starting their business and barely breaking even.
It could take years to make a venture like that profitable.
But Disney wasn’t any other company.
In 1992 they were doing so well that they didn't have to settle for “barely breaking even."
It was the kind of freedom that success afforded them, and it was the kind of freedom that
relegated ideas like Mickey’s Kitchen to obscurity.