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Disney announced earlier this week that Wolfgang Puck Cafe will be closing it's current location in Disney Springs West Side in favor of a newly constructed location elsewhere on the West Side. The new spot is in the vacant lot between the Coca-Cola store and the Exchange Building, the latter technically in the Town Center. The new location will be called Wolfgang Puck Bar and Grill. Construction is underway and won't be completed until 2018. Replacing WPC in the old location will be Jaleo by celebrity chef José Andrés featuring food from mainland Spain.
That leaves Bongo's Cuban Cafe next door as one of the "white elephants" we mentioned in our article last December (Link) when we repeated the Mexican restaurant rumor. Bongo's is Caribbean Spanish but not sufficiently different than the mainland Spanish cuisine of Jaleo to have the two operating side-by-side. So we await an announcement on this one too! (Thanks to Blog reader Troy who alerted us to the WPC announcment!)
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I truly think West Side is about to undergo a Pleasure Island-style restructure (hopefully not of the 'shut everything down and do nothing for seven years' style, but you know what I mean). I mean, Wolfgang Puck's is closing. Disney Quest is closing. We know Cirque will be shutting down at the end of the year (yes, it'll likely come back, but as a new show). Bongos is *likely* going to close. I've heard more than one rumor of House of Blues leaving when its contract is up in a few or two.
ReplyDeleteThat's an *enormous* amount of change on West Side.
No! I hope Bongos holds on until my trip in November....
ReplyDelete@Troy, yeah but what would the "new" west side feature? the new shops in Springs sound like they've not exactly been a massive success, and surely we're nearly at capacity on restaurants as well?
ReplyDeleteHow about a nightclub or two? I'm just saying
ReplyDelete@bob, I think it'll be a similar concept (nothing too fun like nightclubs). Wolfgang Puck's and Bongos are renovated as new restaurants (though Bongos may be spared for a while, because shutting down both at the same time will leave a huge hole, especially with DisneyQuest closing in a month, too). Quest becomes the (dumb) NBA restaurant idea, which would better work at ESPN Worldwide of Sports, but whatever. Cirque will close, I'm just not sure for how long; depends on if Disney wants to remodel or just retool the show.
ReplyDeleteHonestly, I'm beginning to feel a theme here and that Disney will move from area to area every few years to keep things fresh. West Side will take a few years, maybe, and then they'll work on Marketplace, which is needing more than the fresh coat of paint they put up last year. It's the same thing they've done in the parks recently.
I have heard a rumor (from a few people) that there's a potential expansion of either West Side, or a new area west/northwest of West Side. Not sure what it would be, or what it would even include - you're getting close to Saratoga Springs, and I can't imagine the DVC people want a lot of noise at night.
But, like you said, Disney Springs *should* be at capacity for a while.
Wolfgang's new restaurant will be called "CUT", I overheard him talking about it.
ReplyDeleteIt's called Wolfgang Pucks Bar And Grill.
Deletehttp://www.orlandoparksnews.com/2017/06/new-dining-concepts-coming-soon-to.html?m=1