A few (seemingly) random observations and comments.
There are literally tens of thousands of people staying at WDW on any given night, and as folks on this Board know, the competiton level for tables at the "nicer" restaurants (however one wants to define that) is brutal. The notion that WDW cannot support two or three more high end "off the dining plan" restaurants is ludicrous. There is room for another V&A, and perhaps two more places that are what the CG used to be.
As much as we like to talk about affordability and value, there are still, on any given night, thousands of people staying in Disney hotels that charge in excess of $400 per night. Indeed, many people pay multiples of that. I mean no disrespect to the hard-working folks who save for a vacation at the All-Star Resorts and go with
free dining, but most of the people paying $500 per room at the Grand Floridian don't care nearly as much about whether an entree costs $30 or $45. That $15 increase is not going to move the meter on their $10,000 vacation. Folks who often vacation at Ritz Carlton's, Four Seasons, and the Luxury Collection hotels go to WDW also. This clientele would no doubt appreciate a higher level of dining in smaller venues that are not on the dining plan. No need to displace any existing restaurants. But adding a few more venues into a system that already books to capacity all of its TS restaurants months in advance is not asking much.
Take the Poly as an example. Guests there pay over $400 for a room. The clientele there is obviously pretty well off. Yet there is not a single fine dining restaurant in the complex. You may love Ohana, and this is not a debate about its alure. But waiters walking aroung hacking off chunks of meat from a communal skewer is not "fine dining" by any definition. There is no reason why the Poly cannot have a 100 seat beachside restaurant with a view of the fireworks. I promise you that it would sell out every night.
For people who have commented that "guests do not travel to WDW for the food", well, I think that misses the point. People would if they could. Not too long ago, WDW was featured on the cover of Wine Spectator magazine as a dining destination. It had been written up in every major food magazine. It hosts a Food and Wine event for several weeks a year. It CAN be a dining destination, but only once it figures out the proper interplay between the dining plan and fine dining. Consider this evolution. Appetizers are often the place where the chef gets to experiment and create the most. But apps aren't part of the dining plan, so Disney now serves fewer apps than ever before. What is the logical result? The kitchens stop caring about apps and the quality of the dining experience suffers. I think that the best solution, and one that would certainly work given the economic demographic of WDW guests coupled with the fact that restaurants are fully booked months in advance, is to open a handful of new, non-dining plan restaurants that are higher end, smaller scale places serving food that can compete with New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Napa Valley and Los Angeles. If nothing else, the smaller size of these places would create a buzz of exclusivity, and we all know what that means. People would be falling all over themselves to get in. And if it is unpalatable (pardon the pun) to exclude dining plan guests, then simply give them a certain dollar credit toward their bill and have them pay OOP for the overage.
$22 for a shirt that you'll be able to wash once or twice if you're lucky before the design starts to fade.
