A new restaurant at Walt Disney World’s Boardwalk has shocked fans with its prices
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Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida, has swung open the doors to a restaurant with higher prices than one of the world’s most famous and flashy eateries.
Called the Cake Bake Shop, the new restaurant in Disney’s sprawling theme park complex is the third outlet of a chain founded just a decade ago in Indianapolis, Indiana, by Gwendolyn Rogers who made a name for herself by cooking for celebrities. In 2019 she baked Hugh Jackman’s 51st birthday cake and has made others for Dick Van Dyke, Elton John and Justin Timberlake.
One of her most famous creations is the decadent three-layer Earl’s Court Chocolate Cake, named after the convention center in London, England, where it won ‘Best Cake’ at the 2012 Cake & Bake Show. Her success spawned a second outlet in Indiana but her new venture in Disney World is the most breathtaking.
Just a short walk from Disney’s futuristic Epcot park and the neighboring Hollywood Studios, the restaurant and its adjoining cake shop occupy a prized position at the end of Disney’s Boardwalk shopping and dining district. Designed to look like an old-fashioned stretch of seaside entertainment, the Boardwalk is lined with wooden decking and sits on one side of a huge lagoon. Guests riding four-wheeled pedal bikes glide down the decks past booths containing carnival games and iron street lights that look like oil lamps.
Running alongside it is a huge hotel with white wooden clapboard walls and turn-of-the-century antiques on the shelves. Even its pool suits the period when boardwalks blossomed in the United States as its centerpiece slide is supported on struts which make it look like a wooden roller coaster. Shops and restaurants are set into the front of the hotel running right alongside the boardwalk. At the end of it is the Cake Bake Shop, a white-walled pavilion which looks like it has come straight from the pages of The Great Gatsby.
The restaurant isn’t owned or operated by Disney but sits on Disney’s property. Until 2022 the building housed the ESPN Club which was a paradise for sports fans. ESPN commentary played on speakers outside the venue and screens showing the latest games hung from the ceiling inside. It served the kind of dishes you would expect to find in a classic sports café.
A burger and fries could be bought for $18, soup cost $9 and soft drinks came in at $4.29 as recently as 2022. It closed in March that year and its replacement couldn’t be much more different. The Cake Bake Shop’s flowery golden logo isn’t just better-suited to the Boardwalk but also to Disney’s popular Princess characters.
Inside it looks more like a high-end jewelers than a theme park diner. There are white walls and Victorian style ceilings with flourishes in relief. Golden chandeliers dripping with crystals hang from above and illuminate the grey leather banquettes below. Customers carry golden baskets in the cake shop and are handed their purchases in a white cardboard display case which has golden trim around the edges of a plastic viewing window through which the pristine pastries can be admired. The produce comes at a princely price.
After nearly two years of development, the temporary construction walls surrounding the restaurant finally came down in early October revealing the preliminary menus for the restaurant and the cake shop. The prices were sky-high with a single slice of the Earl’s Court Chocolate Cake costing a staggering $26 whilst two scoops of ice cream were priced at $12.
More typical theme park fayre was even more expensive as a French ham and brie (that’s fancy cheese) sandwich along with a Coca-Cola and pomme frites (fries to you and me) cost a whopping $46. The Coke alone cost $8. It left fans thoroughly disenchanted.
Disney World fan site WDWMagic described the prices as “eye-watering” whilst the reader comments were even less restrained with one saying “the prices suck.”
It was a similar story at WDWMagic’s main competitor WDWNT. “$8 for a glass of milk to go with your $26 piece of cake – no thank you,” said one reader whilst others added that “the prices are obscene” and “outrageous by Disney standards. That means they’re unreasonable by any standards.”
Reports of the prices went viral leading to articles about them in news outlets like The Independent and the Daily Mail. It didn’t fall on deaf ears.
Disney declined to comment and the Cake Bake Shop didn’t respond to a request to discuss this. However, it clearly took note of the backlash.
When the restaurant and shop finally swung open their doors today they unveiled a new menu showing that many of the prices had been reduced though some had slightly increased. Some were only lowered by a cent but others by a few dollars. The prices still seem to come from fantasyland with pesto burrata costing $28.99 whilst a Coke will now set you back $6.99 and the slice of chocolate cake weighs in at $24.99.
In light of these prices, filling the restaurant might not be a walk in the park. “It’s gonna be difficult to get people to spend that kind of money maybe at the level they want,” said one WDWMagic reader. Another added that “this seems more like a pure PR move made out of panic rather than a genuine correction of their prices.”
There is no doubt that a number of the items could be sold for less as they have lower prices at the Cake Bake Shop’s other outlets in Indiana. Fries cost $11 there whereas they are $14.99 at the Disney World branch. Likewise, lemonade is a reasonable $4 in Indiana but more than double that at $8.99 in the Boardwalk restaurant.
Some who have visited the Cake Bake Shop restaurants in Indiana argue that although they are expensive, diners go there for special occasions which makes it well-suited to Disney World. However, the same can be said of other restaurants which are even more unique and upscale but serve the same kind of dishes for a lower price.
A number of the items on the menu of the Cake Bake Shop are French and no French-speaking destination says ‘money’ more than Monaco. The tiny principality has a radiant glow and everything there seems to sparkle. Littering is a strict no-no in Monaco along with walking around bare-chested, without shoes or sandals or letting your dogs out without a leash. Prominent panels throughout the state remind visitors of these and other rules and with over 1,000 CCTV cameras in Monaco, it’s no surprise that they are followed.
Classical music is piped to the streets from carefully-concealed speakers and automatic sprinklers water the roadside palm trees which are wrapped in garlands of dazzling lights.
The public gardens are even themed. They range from a collection of exotic plants to a Japanese-style enclave complete with pagodas and one with a topiary dinosaur spouting a fountain from its mouth. There is also a public sculpture trail and a peaceful rose garden with a statue of the Hollywood starlet Grace Kelly, the late mother of Monaco’s current ruler Prince Albert.
Monte Carlo’s Casino Square is famous for its glamor (Photo by ANP via Getty Images)
ANP via Getty Images
Excess is the norm in Monaco. Its centrepiece shopping mall has chandeliers hanging from the ceiling and the underground walkways have marble floors as well as mirror-lined walls. Like an adult’s version of Disneyland, Monaco even has its own fairytale castle sitting atop a craggy rockface which soars high above the skyscrapers and villas. From there, Prince Albert gets an unobstructed view of his kingdom which sits on the sandy shores of the Mediterranean nestled between France and Italy.
Nowhere is the wealth more apparent than in the Monte Carlo district and specifically, Casino Square, known locally as ‘Le Carré d’Or’, or ‘The Golden Square’. On one side of it is a series of cascading gardens leading down to the world-famous casino which was the first in Europe when it opened in 1863. Its profits grew so great that Prince Charles III, Prince Albert’s great-great-great-grandfather, was able to abolish all taxation on Monaco’s citizens.
The casino is owned and operated by state-controlled leisure operator Monte-Carlo Société des Bains de Mer (SBM). It also owns the opulent Hôtel de Paris which sits on another side of Casino Square and looks like a cream-colored wedding cake with its ornate arches and balustrades.
Opposite the hotel is another SBM establishment, the lavish Café de Paris. Founded in 1868, the Café de Paris is probably the most famous restaurant in Monaco and has an ostentatious Belle Époque style evoking an old Parisian bistro. Its terrace and old-fashioned solarium overlook Casino Square making them the place to see and be seen in Monaco.
The Café de Paris is arguably the most famous restaurant in Monte Carlo (Photo credit should read … [+] PATRICE COPPEE/AFP via Getty Images)
AFP via Getty Images
The Café de Paris has been a meeting place for glitterati since the 1930s when they drove through Casino Square to show off their stately sedans. Nowadays there’s a stream of supercars driven by billionaires and if it wasn’t for that you could convince yourself that you’re an extra on the set of an Agatha Christie thriller because little else there has changed for decades. There’s nothing Mickey Mouse about Casino Square – it actually does come from a bygone era. Despite being steeped in grandeur and heritage, some of the items on the Café de Paris menu are cheaper than those at the Cake Bake Shop in Disney World.
The Café de Paris menu shows that Label Rouge certified salmon with a fondue of courgette costs €39 before 15% tax and service are added to the check. That brings the total to $48.49 (€44.85) which isn’t cheap by any standards but it’s less than at the Cake Bake Shop. A roasted salmon filet there will set you back $39.99 but then comes 6.5% local tax. Disney recommends paying between 18% and 20% for service and woe betide anyone who tries to avoid that charge. Taking the midpoint of 19% for the tip brings the total bill for the salmon at the Cake Bake Shop to $50.19
Likewise, after tax and the tip, the pesto burrata comes to $36.38 at the Cake Bake Shop whilst the equivalent at the Café de Paris is the burrata and tomatoes at $28.60 (€26.45) including tax and service. Those $14.99 fries at the Cake Bake Shop have a massive $18.81 price tag once tax and service have been included whilst the equivalent at the Café de Paris costs $14.92 (€13.80).
The Café de Paris menu shows that Label Rouge certified salmon with a fondue of courgette costs €39 before 15% tax and service are added to the check. That brings the total to $48.49 (€44.85) which isn’t cheap by any standards but it’s less than at the Cake Bake Shop. A roasted salmon filet there will set you back $39.99 but then comes 6.5% local tax. Disney recommends paying between 18% and 20% for service and woe betide anyone who tries to avoid that charge. Taking the midpoint of 19% for the tip brings the total bill for the salmon at the Cake Bake Shop to $50.19
Likewise, after tax and the tip, the pesto burrata comes to $36.38 at the Cake Bake Shop whilst the equivalent at the Café de Paris is the burrata and tomatoes at $28.60 (€26.45) including tax and service. Those $14.99 fries at the Cake Bake Shop have a massive $18.81 price tag once tax and service have been included whilst the equivalent at the Café de Paris costs $14.92 (€13.80).
The same goes for the lemonade which is nine cents more expensive at the Cake Bake Shop than at the Café de Paris. It’s not much of a difference (and some other menu items are slightly more expensive in the Café de Paris) but should the prices in a theme park restaurant be even closely comparable to one of the most historic diners in one of the most expensive cities in the world?
Price comparison: Café de Paris and The Cake Bake Shop Restaurant
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The Café de Paris isn’t an exception. Monaco’s Tip Top, a restaurant founded in 1938 by a group which included Prince Albert’s father, the late Prince Rainier III, also has lower prices than the Cake Bake Shop. Frequented by celebrities including the rock band U2, the Tip Top is now owned by Michelin-starred chef Antonio Salvatore, who also runs five restaurants in New York City. The Tip Top’s menu shows that its Croque Monsieur, a French delicacy which is essentially a grilled ham and cheese sandwich, costs $20.53 (€19) – 23.9% less than the price of the dish in the Cake Bake Shop.
Make no bones about it, Disney World, often billed as the place where dreams come true, is a bucket-list destination for many, just like Monaco. However, there are variants of its parks in California, Paris, Hong Kong, Shanghai and Tokyo whilst the Cake Bake Shop itself has two other outlets. However, there’s only one Monaco in the world and it only has one Café de Paris. It is arguably the world’s most famous café and try as they might, no theme park can match its heritage, history or mystique. Clearly they can match its prices and perhaps this shouldn’t come as a surprise.
The Tip Top bar sits on Monaco’s F1 circuit (Photo by Clive Rose – Formula 1/Formula 1 via Getty … [+] Images)
Formula 1 via Getty Images
“Complaining about prices being too high at Disney is like complaining about water being too wet,” said one comment on social media. There is good reason why prices at Disney’s parks have surged over the past five years.
The sharpest increases began when lockdown ended. Consumers had tremendous pent-up demand to travel and were flush with furlough cash so they could pay a premium in order to visit theme parks. Disney took advantage of this and increased ticket prices whilst scrapping previously free frills at Disney World. Free buses from the airport to its on-site hotels ground to a halt along with contactless room keys which came in the form of collectable wristbands.
However, perhaps the most transformative change was scrapping the queue-cutting passes which were previously a complimentary privilege with each entrance ticket. They now come at a cost and, according to a recent data hack, reported by the Wall Street Journal, they generated more than $724 million in pre-tax revenue between October 2021 and June 2024 at Walt Disney World alone. Dropping this perk did almost too good a job.
In March last year, just four months after Bob Iger returned to Disney’s driving seat, he declared at a Morgan Stanley media conference that he “always believed that Disney was a brand that needs to be accessible.” Tellingly, he added “I think that in our zeal to grow profits, we may have been a little bit too aggressive about some of our pricing. And I think there is a way to continue to grow our business but be smarter about how we price so that we maintain that brand value of accessibility.”
Disney World and its Disneyland counterpart in California promptly lowered some ticket prices and added perks but the complimentary collectable wristbands, airport buses and queue-cutting tickets still haven’t returned. In fact, higher tiers of queue-cutting passes were announced earlier this month with the most expensive prices for these so-called Lightning Lane Premier Passes rising up to an extraordinary $478.19 (after tax) per person per day.
Skipping lines at Walt Disney World can now cost as much as $478.19 per day (Photo by Joseph … [+] Prezioso/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
Furthermore, earlier this month Disney World also announced that prices of its annual passes are rising by as much as $100 to $1,549. Likewise, most daily ticket prices at Disneyland increased by about 6% earlier this month while the top-tier Magic Key pass rose by a whopping 20%. It far outstrips the rate of inflation as data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that in August the Consumer Price Index rose by just 2.5% on the same period the previous year.
The price rises have reportedly pushed Disneyland tickets over the $200 mark for the first time causing industry experts to question the wisdom of this. “This price increase couldn’t have come at a worse time when people feel pressured and Disneyland is a option – not a need,” said Jim Shull, a former Disney theme park designer who is one of the world’s leading lights in his field.
The prise rises are no coincidence. Since the pandemic receded, Disney’s Experiences division, which includes its theme parks and cruise line, has cast a powerful spell on the media giant’s bottom line. The price increases combined with the cost cuts were a magic formula as they increased both revenue and profit. Increasing ticket prices boosts the revenue per person whilst cutting the frills reduces costs which increases the profit for Disney on the higher revenue.
It explains why Disney’s Experiences division accounted for just over a third of the media giant’s $88.9 billion revenue and more than two thirds of its $12.9 billion operating income in the year to September 30, 2023. However, clouds have gathered since then.
CNBC recently reported the results of a survey by price-comparison website LendingTree which found that 60% of people who have never been to a Disney park said that cost was the main reason. Worryingly, the survey also concluded that the average amount of debt that Americans get to visit Disney parks comes to $1,690 and 41% of them regretted taking it out.
It has led to furious fans slamming Disney on social media. In March, longtime Disney fan Jake Williams and his partner did just that when they explained that they paid $886 for one day at Disney World’s Magic Kingdom as well as a night at the mid-tier Port Orleans hotel and meals in moderate restaurants.
The backlash shows how finely-balanced Disney’s model is. A slight decrease in attendance enables theme park operators to reduce costs such as staffing and energy which in turn boosts the profit per person. However, if attendance drops so much that the loss of revenue outweighs the increase in profit per person, the overall income falls which is precisely what has been happening recently.
Disney’s latest results show that in the third quarter to June 29, the company generated $4.3 billion of operating profit on $23.2 billion of revenue, which was up 4% on the same period the previous year. It was a respectable result but digging deeper into the data revealed a worrying trend for Disney’s Experiences division.
Higher guest spending at Disney’s domestic parks and cruise lines, as well as increased spending per-room, drove up Experiences revenue by 2% to $8.4 billion. However, it is a sharp decline on the 13% increase in the revenue of the equivalent segment over the same period in 2023 compared to the previous year. Worse still, the operating profit of Disney’s Experiences division declined by 3% to $2.2 billion in the third quarter compared to the same period last year. It was driven by costs climbing at Disney’s domestic parks and as well as a lack of attendance growth. It is expected to stay in this rut for some time.
Disney’s third quarter earnings statement revealed that “the demand moderation we saw in our domestic businesses in Q3 could impact the next few quarters. While we are actively monitoring attendance and guest spending and aggressively managing our cost base, we expect Q4 Experiences segment operating income to decline by mid single digits versus the prior year.”
During the results announcement, Disney’s chief financial officer Hugh Johnston gave insight into the reasons for the decline at Disney’s domestic parks. It is two-pronged as he revealed that “the lower-income consumer is feeling a little bit of stress. The high-income consumer is traveling internationally a bit more. I think you’re just going to see more of a continuation of those trends in terms of the top line.” He added that “we saw attendance flat in the quarter” with a “flattish revenue number” forecast for the fourth quarter and a slowdown expected for “a few quarters.”
Revenue from queue-cutting passes falls straight to the bottom line as they have little to no associated costs. These profits help to offset the loss of income from the decline in attendance which explains why Disney recently introduced the top-tier Lightning Lane Premier Pass.
The decline in performance of the parks and the disenchantment from fans are a black mark on the resumé of Josh D’Amaro, chairman of Disney Experiences. Famous for his sparkling toothy grin, he is a regular visitor to the parks and often stops for selfies with guests and staff, who are known as cast members due to the role they play in a themed environment. D’Amaro himself has 155,000 followers on Instagram, where he posts pictures of himself inside the parks riding roller coasters, chatting with characters and eating soft-serve.
It’s hard to see how his reputation as a man of the people, and Iger’s desire to make Disney more accessible, tallies with the prices in the Cake Bake Shop. As one WDWMagic reader said, “it just seems especially tone-deaf to open this place along with a new price increase in tickets and passes while the country is dealing with a heavy dose of greed-flation going on in all of our lives.”
That’s not to say there’s no place for premium dining at Disney World but the site of a former sports café might not be it. Disney World is already home to the Michelin-starred Victoria & Albert’s restaurant. The palatial Disneyland Hotel in Paris pioneered a different approach in 2018 when it hosted a pop-up restaurant from Michelin-starred chef Jean Imbert. He created a 12-course tasting menu featuring bespoke dishes themed to classic Disney movies.
Imbert didn’t simply name unrelated dishes after movies or create edible items which are seen in the films. Instead, his dishes were inspired by the characters and settings from the movies. So a course called ‘The Little Mermaid’s Ocean’ featured lobster ravioli and Brittany seaweed, ‘Rapunzel’s Hair’ was formed from organic leeks and ‘Cinderella’s Pumpkin’ was an organic pumpkin sorbet.
The menu cost $162 (€150) per person and came with two glasses of champagne as well as three glasses of wine. The cheapest price for a glass of the former at the Cake Bake Shop is $38 whilst the latter costs $15 each. So the drinks alone would cost a total of $121 at the Cake Bake Shop which means that guests at Disneyland Paris got a 12-course Michelin starred meal for just $41. Now that really is a happy ending.