What is special about Brown Derby?

[DVC Sadie]

Kribit: The Derby seems now as much of a "staging area" for Fantasmic as it is a restaurant. At our last meal there (a few years ago), there must have been 20 kids at the tables immediately around ours. At the table just next to ours was a family of 6 people--4 kids and the parents. They were in such a hurry to eat and see Fantasmic that they actually asked for the check BEFORE they even got their food. And the meal before that when we were checking in at the podium, a family of four was told they had to wait about 1/2 hour to be seated for their ADR (the place was packed). The lady became absolutely infuriated, claiming they were there to "see Fantasmic" and if the meal caused them to miss Fantasmic, she was going to sue the Restaurant manager and the podium staff!!!
The only way I'f go back to the BD now is if I got a table after the Fantasmic crowd left. And unfortunately, we don't like to eat that late. But fortunately, we did eat at the BD 6 or 7 times before the change, so those memories are good!!!

ITA!

That is why we either eat a late lunch or get TG. The last few years we have opted to skip the dining during dinner hours due to both the crowds and the attitudes of some people in those crowds.

 

[kribit]

Kribit: The Derby seems now as much of a "staging area" for Fantasmic as it is a restaurant. At our last meal there (a few years ago), there must have been 20 kids at the tables immediately around ours. At the table just next to ours was a family of 6 people--4 kids and the parents. They were in such a hurry to eat and see Fantasmic that they actually asked for the check BEFORE they even got their food. And the meal before that when we were checking in at the podium, a family of four was told they had to wait about 1/2 hour to be seated for their ADR (the place was packed). The lady became absolutely infuriated, claiming they were there to "see Fantasmic" and if the meal caused them to miss Fantasmic, she was going to sue the Restaurant manager and the podium staff!!!
The only way I'f go back to the BD now is if I got a table after the Fantasmic crowd left. And unfortunately, we don't like to eat that late. But fortunately, we did eat at the BD 6 or 7 times before the change, so those memories are good!!!

Thanks for the heads up. We're not even sure about Fantasmic, but I was hoping to find a quieter place to eat. I suppose in Disney with people rushing their kids around, it gets pretty noisy with cranky kids especially late at night (one of the other reasons we don't make many reservations). I just don't know from day to day how my litle ones are giong to be mood wise so we're certainly not going to drag them somewhere when it's no going to be fun for everyone. I'd rather relax than contend with them being miserable hence making everyone else around us angry. Not fun.

Maybe we'll do it at lunch instead. The menu looks so good.

 

[SueEllen]

I love the Brown Derby. The menu is slightly different for dinner than it is for lunch, but both are very good.
I must be in the minority here though because I do not like the Cobb salad or the Grapefruit Cake.
They have so many other wonderful offerings though.

Sue Ellen

 

[BCV23]

Now that the BD is so crowded and noisy we usually just order TG and have the meal delivered to our room.

How do you get the meal delivered to your room?

We enjoy the BD too but almost always for lunch. The Cobb salad is so good and lunch there provides a nice, quiet respite from the park.

 

[DVC Sadie]

How do you get the meal delivered to your room?

We enjoy the BD too but almost always for lunch. The Cobb salad is so good and lunch there provides a nice, quiet respite from the park.

A cast member from our hotel was kind enough to pick it up for us and brought it back. That was several years ago and was a very kind thing to do.

 

[DisneyKidds]

Well-it WAS special before Fantasmic came along. Used to be quiet, not very full, few kids, a piano player playing at dinner (and once in awhile his girlfriend would be there and sing some songs), the Catwalk Bar was open-and even once in awhile a "street" character" or two would come in and make the rounds.
NOw--it's almost always always full of families waiting to see Fantasmic. Noisy and rushed. All those other things are "gone".
It is of course a pretty restaurant and those pics on the walls are interesting. The Cobb salad is good, as is the Grapefruit cake.

Bingo...sort of. I suppose I never really considered Fantasmic to be the downfall of the BD, but I think on that some more.

But the gist of this post I agree with. There WAS a time when the BD was one of the best retaurants in WDW. We've eaten there every year since 1991. The food and the service used to be spectacular, along with the atmosphere, which once included the sound of the piano playing relaxing music along with your kids favorite Disney movie song requests. There was a time when the menu was more extensive than it is now, and they had wonderful specials in addition to the usual offerings. There was a time when servers took great pride in landing a job at the BD.

While the atmosphere is still very nice, although sans the piano playing, the food and service have become average at best. There are still some very good menu items (oyster brie soup, cobb salad), but the overall quality has gone down quite a bit (our steaks there have been disappointing the last couple of times) and the service is lacking (inattentive, unable to anwer questions). As a result, the BD has moved off of our list of must-do's after being there more than a decade. No way it is worth two TS credits if you are on the plan.

Yes, it is the best TS option in the studios, and the casually elegant atmosphere is still very nice.....but that isn't enough to keep this location in the upper echelon of WDW eateries.

 

[ElizabethB]

We just had lunch there last week. Lunch is preferable to dinner since we avoid the Fantasmic crowds that way. Our assessment -- the Cobb Salad is still very good, although we miss the option to add shrimp for a few more dollars (I suppose that is a victim of the DDP, although why they can't provide that option when dining there takes two TS credits, I just don't know). We had the coconut shrimp appetizer -- delicious as usually, but there were only two (count 'em two!) shrimp for something like $8 -- another casualty of DDP apparently. Unfortunately, for people like us who aren't on DDP, the price becomes a little silly for what you actually get -- especially where appetizers are concerned. Generally, however, the food we had was very tasty.

Unfortunately, the grapefruit cake, which we used to look forward to immensely, is now disappointing. It tastes like it is being mass produced. It used to taste gloriously homemade. The whole side of the cake is now covered with, instead of icing, some kind of pre-formed cake product, which no doubt prevents the rest of the cake from drying out. Unfortunately, it tasted exactly like what it is -- some kind of barely edible pre-formed cake product.

Not sure we'll go to BD again. Like others, however, we have lovely memories of the ambience, the pianist, the amazing food, etc. I can't figure out why WDW doesn't just downgrade the food and service a bit more and make it a 1TS restaurant. I have no idea why, but I'm beginning to suspect it may have something to do with the Brown Derby licensing arrangements -- perhaps WDW committed to a certain quality of food in order to be able to use the BD name? Whatever . . . as with many restaurants at WDW now, we left feeling "eh".

 

[TLSnell1981]

I guess we have always been lucky with BD. We always brought our kids (and now our grandkids) here. Love the food, love the atmosphere and really love doing the Fantasmic Package! It's a shame people bring children that don't know how to behave. This is the parent's fault, not the childs. I'm fortunate that I have never had an experience like that.

 

[hmillerbarilla]

I'm glad I found this thread.. we're thinking of trying BD on our trip next year for lunch. Sounds like lunch would be a good time too. We always go to PTC for dinner but thought we would change things up next year & try something new.

 

[evenpar4me]

I was very disapointed in the BrownDerby,grapefruitcake was good,service poor.not worth two credits for Fantasmic pk however.

 

[WDW4ever]

I recall liking the Cobb Salad very much.