Kevin, thanks for the review of W.G. Pucks

[Launchpad11B]

We were at both WP's and WP express in Sept. WP's food was pretty good but the service was terrible. WP express was quick and tasted great. Sounds as if Kevin's experiance was very similar to ours.

 

[saturday97]

So I decided to check out Landry's website to see if they had anything official about owning WP at WDW...nothing that I could find, but I saw that they now own one of my favorite restaurants in San Diego. Peohe's took a major turn for the worst recently and now I know why. Bummer.

 

[OrlandoMike]

Wolfgang puck is run by Levy restaurants, not Landrys.

http://www.levyrestaurants.com/Levy...staurants/Group1/Wolfgang+Puck+Grand+Cafe.htm

 

[txvjc]

I ate at WGP Cafe and Express back in Sept of this year and I will say I was not impressed with the Cafe at all. We had a 1pm ADR but since we finished our shopping early, we wanted to get back to the hotel so we could rest before MNSSHP so we went over at 12 and asked if we could be seated. The hostess acted like she was going to do us a big favor even though the restraunt was less than half full and never got more than half full. The appetizers we're forgettable, for our entrees I had the MahiMahi on couscous and my wife had a pepperoni pizza. The couscous was good but the fish was dry and tasteless and the pizza was so greasey you couldn't pick it up. We had the chocolate cake and cheesecake for dessert whick were ok, but I could get the better quality at LaMadeline. The service was super slow and as far as we could tell out waiter only had two tables beacuse we were looking for him often for refills.(I think we got a bad waiter though because I saw other tables with very attentive waiters) What I thought would be a 45 min -1 hr meal turned into an almost 2 hour meal for 2 people. I am happy we were on the free dinning because I thought it was a total waste of a TS.

That being said I thought the Express at Marktplace was good and was prob the best CS credit I used the whole trip (other than Flame Tree...mmmm...Flame Tree)

 

[dkostel]

Love the Cafe! We just ate there in Nov, was 1 hr early & my mother asked to move to a different table (just because she always does, almost never is happy with the table we are given). The food was excellent all around, and the service was good (new server).
I had to laugh when you commented on the 4 girls up in front. They are always there, I have no idea why .
Sounds like we were lucky, from what I'm reading here.

 

[Renysmom]

We ate at the Express in Marketplace last week.

It was awesome!! great fast service, super food and the staff was beyond friendly, two CM's talked to us for a few minutes each during the rush of lunch.

We would go back there is a second.. BTW anyone know what is on the chicken sandwich I had? it was soooo good and I have wanted one for days now

 

[PhenoSteve]

Hello everyone. This is my first post on the forums, but I've been listening to the podcast since about February each week. Being a food lover/cook and hearing Kevin's review for the episode when we were in Disney World, I thought this would be an appropriate place to start.

We arrived the Sunday after Kevin reviewed the Cafe, and Mr. Mute sat us as well. While we didn't have the horrendous treatment that Kevin and his party did, I have to agree with all he said about the food.

My wife had the kettle chips and blue cheese, and I found them to be overly soggy and salty. Not to mention there was far too much on one plate for a single appetizer. I had the artichoke dip and it was a complete case of the "whatevers." My sister, who is not a cook by any means, makes a far superior artichoke dip. And the cost to feed an entire party is the same as that shallow little dish of semi warm goo at WGP.

Our entrees were little better. I went with the pork chop, and while the meat was cooked properly it tasted like moist paper. The glob of spinach it sat on tasted close to a salt lick with some spinach flavor. And the key lime pie was horrendously sweet and texturally unappealing. I've had better key lime pie in NYC, and while it is NYC...key lime pie should be a no brainer for any decent restaurant in Florida.

I'm also glad I didn't waste my opportunity for some sushi at the Cafe after hearing what they serve. I had the sashimi at California Grill later in the trip and it was divine.

One thing I'd like to mention is that we used the Disney Dining Plan for WGP Cafe, and I'm thankful we did. I would have been extremely upset that our first Disney dining experience of the trip went so poorly. After the plane ride and check in at French Quarter we were tired and wanted a good meal. That wouldn't come until later. Too bad this review hadn't been just one week prior.

Edit: I'd like to add that our waitress was FANTASTIC. She was constantly filling our drinks and very accomodating when we wanted to take some dessert back home so that we could make it to Fantasmic.

 

[scarlett873]

We had a negative experience ourselves at WPC about 2 years ago. We had always enjoyed eating at the Express locations, so we thought that we'd give the Cafe a try. Wrong...

We made an ADR for 4:30pm-ish, thinking that would allow us plenty of time to enjoy our meal and get over to the Adventurer's Club when their festivities began. Wrong. We arrived on time for our ADR and were asked to wait to be seated. We waited about 10 minutes and as we were taken back to our table, I noticed that the restaurant was completely empty. Whe on earth did we have to wait to be seated? lol...

We were seated in a far back corner near a door where servers came and went constantly, which grew tiring after hearing the servers complain about customers and food and the fact that their toe nail polish had chipped off of their little toe. Have you ever seen the show Kitchen Nightmares with Gordon Ramsey? You know the episodes where Chef Ramsey is in a yelling match with the head chef of the restaurant and it's so loud that the customers can hear it? Yep...that's what it was like...The view was nice though...it was of the water (I forget the name of the body of water there)...too bad I was seated with my back to it. (My own fault I know)

So we order our food (we were also on the dining plan) and while I can't remember what it was that we ordered, I do remember that it was not very good at all. Once our appetizers were done, we waited and waited and waited some more for our entrees. I believe my husband ordered some kind of steak and I ordered a simple pizza. Our server was great, she was also insanely frustrated with the length of time it was taking to get our food. Everyone seated in our section was having the same problem (different servers though). We barely made it to the Adventurer's Club by 7:30pm. We never even had dessert because it had taken soooooooooooo ridiculously long to get our entrees!

And because of that one experience, my husband will never eat there again. We will continue to dine at the Express locations, but never again in the Cafe.

 

[nll007]

Sorry for chiming in a little late. We just got back from a 9 day trip to wdw and combined with the holidays I'm just getting caught up with podcasts.

Our first trip to WP in 2001 yielded mixed results. The food was fantastic but the service was not. There were six of us and they squeezed into a table of 4. We were sat in the lower level with three of us squeezed into a bench seat for two. Two were seated normally and one was squeezed into the area between tables. I felt sorry for the family next to us who had to see my friends back against the table. Across from us was a larger empty table where a group had just finished there meal. We offered to wait a while for them to clean it up and the hosts response was along the lines of "It might be a while before we can clean that up, either take this table or we can put you back in line'. So much for reservations. Of course, within 10 minutes the table was cleaned but never used. We were tempted to move ourselves. We asked to speak to a manager and he never came. At least our waitress was prompt and attentive.

The second attempt to eat at WP was in 2005. We had reservations for 9 and were waiting for a large party to leave. They were done with desserts and were just hanging out. There is nothing wrong with that and I can't fault them at all. I do have a problem with the hosts. There were 3 that never took a class on interpersonal communications. When we checked in for the first time, the guy looked up at us and nodded his head. There was no greeting at all just an acknowledgment of our existence. So we check in and are told it will be 10 minutes. 10 minutes later, they said it will be another 10 minutes. no big deal, we thought, it happens. 15min later we go back to the podium and there was no one there. a small line had formed for other guests. When we finally got to the podium, they told us another 10 minutes because of the previous group hasn't left. We didn't care how long the other group took, what got us upset was that there other groups arrived after us and were seated without reservations. There were also empty tables that could have been pushed together but they were intent on making us wait for the other group to finish. 15 minutes later or 45 minutes in total, we left the pager on the chair and left. We'll never go back there again.

Not sure when Levy's took over but I've never had such bad service at a WP. I've eaten at Palo Alto, Hollywood and Las Vegas outlets and have never had a problem. That's okay, that just means we try some of the other fantastic restaurants the next time we go.