By Every Walt Disney World theme park offers more than enough dining options to keep you fed and fueled for your park visit.
Alas, some parks are better than others, and let’s just say that Disney’s Hollywood Studios is no EPCOT.
Still, we can tell you several places to target and a few to avoid. Here’s where you should eat at Hollywood Studios.
Quick Service Restaurants
We’re just gonna level with you. When you eat at Hollywood Studios, your options are Woody’s Lunch Box and…everywhere else.
Don’t get us wrong. Several of the other places serve tasty food. It’s just that Woody’s Lunch Box absolutely crushes the competition with its combination of flavor and affordability.
When you think of comfort food, you’re envisioning Woody’s Lunch Box, whether you realize it or not.
This place serves grilled cheese sandwiches, tater tots, and elevated non-branded Pop-Tarts.
You’ll find other items on the menu such as Totchos, which are tater tots – Disney calls them Potato Barrels – covered with chili, cheese, and queso.
There’s a BBQ Brisket Melt and a Smoked Turkey Sandwich, too, but you’re losing the plot if you order those.
Your goal here is to eat a meal your parent(s) would have made when you were a kid to make you feel better.
After one bite at Woody’s Lunch Box, you’ll feel like Anton Ego sampling Remy’s ratatouille for the first time. It’s that good.
Even better, you can have the meal I just described for about $21 plus tax. Prices like that are tough to beat at any tourist destination in America, much less Disney World.
Still, we realize that you’ll try some other places while you’re at Hollywood Studios. So, let’s highlight the best alternative options when you’re not in the mood for tater tots.
ABC Commissary serves some of the most fascinating desserts in Orlando, which we quite love about it. The menu’s also rather surprising.
You can order Shrimp Tacos or a Buffalo Chicken Grilled Cheese Sandwich here. Those don’t sound like conventional theme park dining fare, do they?
Something else you’ll appreciate about ABC Commissary is the location, as it’s right off Commissary Lane, an action spot at the park.
You’ll walk by the restaurant a couple of times during your visit anyway, so you might as well eat here, right? If you do, check for a seasonal/holiday dessert! It’ll be decadent.
Oh, and this place is indoors, something you’ll appreciate on hot days.
We think Backlot Express gets a bad rap. It’s a burger and chicken tenders place, to be sure, but we love the location.
You’ll find this restaurant near the Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular!, and it’s a short walk from Star Tours – The Adventures Continue as well.
That makes Backlot Express an excellent place to hole up and recuperate during a wild Hollywood Studios day.
Plus, there’s indoor/outdoor seating here, which gives us options, depending on the weather.
By the way, there’s one seemingly permanent dessert on the menu, a Wookiee Cookie.
Some mad scientist at Disney jammed two oatmeal cookies together while using vanilla cream filling as the glue. It’s an A+ dessert.
Speaking of Wookiees, when you’re at Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge, you should consider Docking Bay 7 Food and Cargo.
Don’t let the strange, hard-to-defend name fool you. Disney was just being weird there with the theming.
The concept here is that you’re dining inside a spaceship hangar bay, which means gadgets and gizmos are everywhere.
There’s an intentional vibe that the place could use some tidying, which you’d expect in an active workspace.
Disney wants you to feel like you’re a member of The Resistance grabbing a bite in between heroic missions.
Also, unlike many other Star Wars shops and restaurants, this place resides indoors, which you’ll appreciate on hot and/or wet days.
As for the menu, it’s…weird. Disney has named everything thematically, which created confusion at first.
You may feel strange ordering Kaadu, but we swear it’s just pork ribs with a Star Wars name.
Similarly, Tip Yip is chicken, and Peka is just a place in the Outer Rim of the Star Wars universe. Don’t let any of this silliness distract you from eating a good meal.
There’s another option at Galaxy’s Edge, and it’s also tightly themed. Ronto Roasters serves the Ronto Wrap, which is just roasted pork in pita bread.
Star Wars fans will like this place because a robot spins a Ronto on a spit throughout the meal. Vegans may find it a bit macabre and avoid the place entirely, though.
While we’re talking all things Rey and Kylo Ren, we should mention Oga’s Cantina, which isn’t a restaurant per se.
This is a thematic lounge with one of our favorite Star Wars Easter eggs. R3X, the failed pilot from the original Star Tours, has moved on to a well-needed career change.
Now, he spins all the intergalactic hits as the deejay at Oga’s Cantina. Disney also serves quick bites and drinks here that will charm the Lightsabers off of Star Wars fans.
This place remains extremely popular after all this time. So, you’ll probably need a reservation.
Hollywood Studios worked as a half-day park for ages, which explains some of the other dining options.
Places like Catalina Eddie’s, Dockside Diner, Fairfax Fare, and Rosie’s All-American Café serve typical theme park fare, the kind Disney typically eschews.
For example, Rosie’s sells hot dogs, burgers, and chicken tenders. Catalina Eddie’s will save you when you need a slice of pizza, presuming you don’t care whether it’s great.
At Fairfax Fare, you can grab one of three protein bowls, including a Korean barbecue one that’s pretty good. This place is also renowned for its breakfast Waffle Platter.
Stylistically, our favorite is Dockside Diner, a little snack shack inside a boat. It mainly sells hot dogs, but its central location will save you in a pinch.
Thankfully, all of these places are easy to find, as Disney has smartly stuck them in highly trafficked areas of the park.
Finally, when you need STARBUCKS® Coffee, you’ll head straight to The Trolley Car Café, which also serves breakfast sandwiches and a much-beloved Carrot Cake Whoopie Pie.
Table Service Restaurants and More
The good news about fine dining at Hollywood Studios is that if you love impeccable theming, you’re in business.
The bad news is that there aren’t many options here, and one of them is VERY expensive.
We’ll take these alphabetically so as to hide David’s unmistakable bias, starting with a fun option, ‘50s Prime Time Café.
You may not be old enough to remember this, but the 1950s were the golden age of television for the most ridiculous reason.
People would load up their TV trays with food, sit in the living room, and watch bland, painfully predictable black & white sitcoms.
That was how families bonded during the post-World War II era as the living room became the entertainment center of the house.
‘50s Prime Time Café recreates those days in a living room filled with televisions. Even better, your server and the other staff members here will treat you like family!
Actually, that may not be a good thing, as they’ll nag you to clean your plate and keep your elbows off the table.
It’s all in good fun, and the Cast Members are great at recognizing anyone who doesn’t feel like playing along.
When you want to tease someone pretending to be your aunt, uncle, or cousin, this restaurant proves a wonderful place to blow off steam.
As for the food, well, it’s heavy. Cousin Megan’s Traditional Meatloaf and Mom’s Old-fashioned Pot Roast has never struck us as the kind of entrees we should eat at this particular park.
Disney has added some more modest dishes such as a chicken pot pie to address that concern. And that strikes us as the most thematically appropriate dish here anyway.
Should you want a big meal but prefer a more understated affair, we’d suggest The Hollywood Brown Derby.
Depending on your age, you may be familiar with this restaurant, whose history is intimately entwined with Hollywood’s Golden Era.
Studio bosses would meet at the Hollywood Brown Derby and pitch new movies to stars and starlets.
The Cobb Salad would warm over any cold feelings and help to secure a deal. It happened more than you think, as the original restaurants explain why you know what a Cobb Salad is.
Disney has recreated the space at a centralized park location, and we love everything about The Hollywood Brown Derby save for its price.
Yup, this one falls in the Signature Dining category, with some entrees costing more than $50.
We’re happy to report that the cheapest entrée on the menu is the Cobb Salad. So, if you want the original version, it’s relatively affordable at just under $30.
This place is oh so stylish and definitely a place to check out. We just don’t perceive it as great value at a park with so many lovingly themed eateries.
Hollywood & Vine isn’t our favorite restaurant at this park, but it’s a place where we eat a lot. You’d completely understand why if you knew us.
We love character meals an unhealthy amount, and this is one of the best options. Even better, it changes from time to time!
Although the restaurant formerly offered Disney Junior Play n’ Dine, that character meal is no longer an option.
Instead during breakfast, lunch and dinner, Minnie Mouse plays hostess during your meal! Oh, and she is dressed to the nines.
The conceit of Minnie’s Seasonal Dining involves a change of clothing once a quarter.
So, Minnie and her friends, including Donald and Daisy Duck, interact with guests. That’s not the best part, though. It’s their outfits!
During the first three months each year, Minnie, Mickey, and the gang dress up like movie stars during awards season.
Then, when the season changes, the Springtime Dine begins, with Minnie appropriately changing into a snazzier outfit.
Our favorite season is the fall, as everyone wears their Halloween costumes! Nobody says “totes adorbs” anymore, but if they did, it would definitely apply here.
The year ends with the gang dressed in festive Yuletide holiday outfits. They look like a Hallmark holiday movie poster!
Seriously, everything about this meal is amazing… except for the food. It’s totally paint-by-numbers Disney buffet cuisine.
We don’t eat here because we’re foodies. No, we go because we’re shameless tourists, and this is one of the most Disney things in Florida!
Roundup Rodeo BBQ is the newest Table Service restaurant at Hollywood Studios, and it’s a fabulous one at that.
The core concept here involves the central premise of Toy Story Land as a whole. You’ve shrunk down to the size of a toy!
So, everything at the restaurant looks comically big since you’re so small! The premise will warm your heart anyway, but Disney spices it up with a few bits of excitement.
For instance, in the middle of dinner, you’ll be alerted that Andy is on the way. So, you must sit perfectly still, lest you be seen and outed as a living, breathing toy!
We love this place, and it serves one of the best vegan dishes at Disney World. Trixie’s Plant-Based Trio features a bratwurst you’d swear was made of real meat.
Note that you’ll pay a set price here, and if you don’t eat the cheddar biscuits, you should question all your life decisions to date.
Next, we have Sci-Fi Dine-In Theater Restaurant, and that deafening squeal you just heard was David expressing his delight.
This isn’t merely his favorite restaurant at Disney World; it’s literally his favorite place to eat on this planet. We’re not joking.
The two of us grew up in the age of low-budget science fiction movies dominating weekend television viewing.
Sci-Fi Dine-In plays an infinite loop of (ridiculous) highlights from these sorts of low-budget, low-effort movies, along with some fascinating clips of Walt Disney, and a few cartoons.
To David, this restaurant feels like the mother ship calling him home. He’s probably the world’s greatest evangelist for this place, but it’s important to know that Kim loves it, too.
For fans of the sillier side of movie entertainment, Sci-Fi Dine-In encapsulates a lost slice of life: the drive-in theater.
When you dine here, you’ll enter a darkened space filled with convertibles. Your “table” resides in one of these cars. So, it’s like you’re at an actual drive-in. We just love it.
Critics of Sci-Fi Dine-In deride its menu, which admittedly consists of burgers and fries. There’s even a Cyborg-er.
And now David’s squealing delightedly again. He doesn’t even like puns as a rule, but… Cyborg-er!
Admittedly, Sci-Fi Dine-In isn’t for everyone, but it’s definitely for us. For those of you on the fence about it, we’d encourage you to look at images and videos to decide for yourself.
We’ll warn you that there are a lot of people like us who happen to be Disney fans. Sci-Fi Dine-In’s one of the most challenging reservations to book at Disney World.
So, that’s the list of restaurants at Hollywood Studios. We’ll close with two other tidbits.
The first involves Fantasmic!, the exceptional nighttime presentation at Hollywood Studios.
Since the best seats here remain highly in demand after all this time, Disney offers Fantasmic! dining packages for some of its restaurants.
If you plan to watch the show, you may feel priced in on one of these packages. Fantasmic! is the type of show where the seating matters. You want a good one.
Finally, we’ll alert you to the fact that Disney’s Riviera Resort, Disney’s Caribbean Beach Resort, and EPCOT’s World Showcase are just a Disney Skyliner ride away from Hollywood Studios.
We sometimes leave the park to eat elsewhere since we love the dining at the Riviera. For those of you who don’t mind leaving the park to eat better, it’s something to consider.