Armchair Imagineering: Bambi’s

(This piece was originally written in 2009 as my entry for an amateur Imagineering contest on deviantART. I've done my best to update it to reflect the current state of California Adventure, but if anything seems awkward...that's why.)

Disneyland Resort offers its guests a broad variety of lunch and dining options, from the fine cuisine and full table service of the Blue Bayou and Ariel’s Grotto to the everyday fare at the Village Haus and Flo's Diner. However, one thing that is so far lacking is a vegetarian restaurant. Vegetarian options exist at most resort eateries, but why should guests who don’t eat meat have to scour every menu in order to find something to their tastes? How can a park resort located in California, and catering primarily to local visitors, lack something as basic to California culture as a vegetarian restaurant?

To fill this gap, I propose Bambi’s, an outdoor, meat-free eatery that not only provides vegetarian guests a place where every menu item is “safe,” but charms its patrons with immersive theming evoking one of Disney’s beloved classic films that, strangely enough, has never been prominently featured in the parks. In short, it fills two gaps at once.

Location

Bambi’s is located in Disney California Adventure,* in what is currently a landscape area between Redwood Creek, Grizzly Peak Airfield, and the Grand Californian Hotel. If necessary, it can potentially share kitchen facilities with the hotel, thus leaving more space to devote to the service and seating areas. The entrance is approximately where the walkway bends around Grizzly River Rapids.

Design

The entrance to Bambi’s resembles an archway formed by the trunks and branches of two deciduous trees. The restaurant sign hangs on the center of the archway, and features young Bambi, Thumper, Flower, Friend Owl, and a few other birds and creatures interspersed with forest foliage surrounding the name of the eatery. More trees, both real and artificial, partially screen the service and seating areas from the view of guests traveling the nearby walkway, but a menu display made to look like a tree stump with a portion of bark removed entices hungry patrons to pass through the archway.

Immediately beyond the arch is the service area, with a pasta and bread buffet to the right and a full salad bar straight ahead, abutting what is currently the outer wall of the hotel. (For menu details, see below.) The fixtures are decorated to resemble fallen logs and mossy rock formations, and the overhangs that protect them from the elements are disguised as the boughs and leaves of a forest canopy. Even the ground is themed with the colors and textures of a forest floor, including the tracks of deer, rabbits, quail, and other animals. Small planters containing attractive, hardy vegetation help to break up the space and direct traffic flow.

After selecting their food, guests pay at freestanding cash registers (also decorated as above) and move to the seating area, which is fully outdoors but shielded from sun and rain by canvas canopies painted with a leafy design, and supported by artificial tree trunks (complete with bracket fungi), all seamlessly integrated with each other to look like a genuine forest glade. The fake trees have audio speakers built in, playing a nonstop loop of forest sounds: birds and squirrels during the day, segueing to crickets, frogs, and owls by dinnertime. Some trees also sport simple audio-animatronic critters and/or inset LED screens displaying loops of animation in which animals from the film Bambi frolic. Since the Disneyland Monorail passes over this area, sensors are installed along the track that cause an approaching train to trigger a lively “twitterpated” sequence in the animatronics and screens, partially masking the noise. The tables and chairs appear to be constructed out of split logs and small tree stumps.

Around the outer margin of the seating area, beyond a low fence, is a landscaped garden of trees, flowers, shrubs, ferns, and other temperate forest plants, accented with mossy boulders and a rushing stream. More audio speakers hidden in the foliage ensure that the forest sounds are clearly audible from every part of the seating area.

The exit from Bambi’s is located at the southeast corner of the seating area and debouches back onto the walkway.

Service and Menu

Bambi’s offers buffet service, including a full salad bar.

The menu items include no meat of any kind, although egg and dairy products are available. Pasta items include spaghetti, penne, and miniature raviolis stuffed with ricotta cheese, any of which may be doused with marinara, creamy alfredo, or green sauce and a sprinkling of Parmesan cheese. A treat that goes perfectly with the pasta is “stag antlers”—actually soft garlic breadsticks made in the shape of antlers. Or for a change of pace, guests can try steamed seasonal veggies and whole-grain muffins with butter, honey, and/or berry jam.

The real draw of Bambi’s, however, is its salad bar, the only one of its kind in the parks. Salads are sold by weight, so guests may serve themselves as much or as little as they’re hungry for without worrying about unnecessary expense…although a statue of Thumper and a plaque bearing his immortal words “Eating greens is a special treat…it makes long ears and great big feet” encourages them to load up! The salad bar items change depending on seasonal availability, but the following are always stocked: iceberg lettuce, romaine lettuce, spinach, red cabbage, broccoli, tomatoes, green onions, red onions, carrots, mushrooms, cucumber slices, sliced hard-boiled eggs, black olives, raisins, shredded cheddar cheese, and bleu cheese crumbles. Salad dressing comes pre-packaged in lidded plastic cups to reduce the potential for messes, with options of Italian, ranch, Thousand Island, Catalina, and balsamic vinaigrette. Also available at the salad bar are pre-packaged fruit plates like those available at some other restaurants in the resort.

The soda fountain offers the resort usuals: Coke, Diet Coke, Sprite, Barq’s root beer, iced tea, and coffee, as well as individual cartons and bottles of milk, juice, or vitamin water. The menu is rounded out with a few bonuses that guests can pick up right at the cash registers: fresh apples and oranges, oatmeal raisin cookies, and Rice Krispie treats with flower-shaped sprinkles.

* I regret to inform my readers that this is probably the last gasp of my “New Year's resolution” to pay more attention to Disneyland's sister park.