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Hospitality House Extinct Magic Kingdom Services Location Location: Main Street USA Opened: October 1, 1971 Closed: c. March 1990 Space Later Became: Disneyana Collectibles (1990 - 1998) Town Square Exposition Hall (1998 - present) Town Square Cafe Altered Magic Kingdom Restaurant Location: Main Street USA Opened: October 1, 1971 Now operating as: Tony's Town Square Restaurant (1989 - present) All images copyright The Walt Disney Company. Last photo courtesy John Kunzer. Text 2010 by Mike Lee |
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Last Update to this page: January 5, 2011 (additional text, Coffee Mill Restaurant reference) The Gulf Hospitality House , sponsored by Gulf Oil Corporation from 1971 to 1979, was
housed in a building originally marked both in printed
descriptions and on maps as the Main Street Hotel. Early
concept art by Dorothea Redmond has shown that the original idea was
for an actual hotel to operate from this location. It's an
intriguing notion, and one that explains the look and feel of the lobby
that existed for many years inside the Hospitality House. The
massive wood-paneled counter on the room's south end - which could have
easily served as a hotel's front desk - ended up functioning as a sort of
"second City Hall," where guests could make reservations for
on-property accommodations, get information about recreational
activities and also obtain Gulf driving route brochures.
On the wall behind the counter was a prominent reproduction of the WDW
"fun map" that also appeared in many WDW hotel rooms in the 1970s.
Only that last sentence was fabricated. More surprising
than the reference to fetching young women (a mainstay of WDW's early years that began with
the WDW Preview Center in 1970) is the part about
Disney offering information about other Florida attractions. It's a throwback to
a time when they also served both Pepsi and Coke in the park, to when you could
enter the Magic Kingdom for a modest "cover charge" and then decide if you wanted to visit any of the ticketed
attractions for an additional fee, to when WDW presented itself as just one of
many worthwhile things to see and do in Central Florida.
It was during the early years of the Eisner management era (1984
- 2005) that this bit of thinking was, for all intents and
purposes, done away with as WDW found itself repositioned via mindset and
marketing as a one-stop destination unto itself. |
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In
terms of its spatial configuration, it appears that the
Hospitality House opened as part of a building that really might have been
made part of that
actual
projected hotel at some future date, since nothing but a backstage parking lot sat behind
it, if the company decided to complete it in that manner. But
when plans for The Walt
Disney Story
were revealed in 1972, promising an attraction that
would wrap around the side and rear of the Hospitality House building, the
Main Street Hotel concept was
permanently deferred*. In 1973, the Hospitality House became
the exit point for the new Walt Disney Story attraction, with its
post-show exhibit hall channeling into
the lobby space
from the east. What a wonderful man he was! I worked at the Town Square Cafe in Disney World back in 1971 or 72 where George would greet guests and sit and talk with them as they ate their meals...of course serving only Oscar-Mayer hot dogs as well as other delicious food. He was so kind to all the waitresses and the entire staff and knew us all by name! Never ever saw this great guy in a bad mood! I know he will be missed by many.
If
only all former WDW employees could be remembered so fondly! It
seems that Molchan earned the testimonials, however, and he certainly
added a ton of interest and character to a restaurant that might otherwise
be notable just for having a more fancy spin on hot dogs than
Refreshment Corner just down the street. |
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The
level of sophistication*** represented in this
selection raises a question ... should a Main Street
restaurant sponsored by Oscar-Mayer, perhaps, have also offered an Omnibus
Dog or Fire Station Frankfurter along with Wieners a la
Oscar? A hot dog lover thinks so, but apparently the Town
Square Cafe chefs kept guests happy even without those extra
options. The menu also confirms that the Columbia Harbour House was
not
the first location
in the park to serve a Monte Cristo
sandwich. Concurrent with a 1978 rehab, the menu was expanded to include fried shrimp and
ribs. One thing the Magic Kingdom has never had enough of is fried
shrimp. The menu also drives home that aforementioned point about Coke and Pepsi
being offered side by side in the park for ten years (except for in
the Coke-sponsored Tomorrowland Terrace, the Coke-sponsored Refreshment
Corner and the Pepsi-sponsored Mile Long Bar & Pecos Bill
Cafe). |
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