Garden Grill Restaurant Review
Garden Grill is home to Chip ‘n’ Dale’s Harvest Feast, a family-style character meal in EPCOT’s Land pavilion. This Walt Disney World dining review features food photos plus our opinion of this all-you-can-eat, rotating restaurant offering views into the Living with the Land ride. (Updated April 12, 2023.)
Just to make sure you caught all of that, we have: 1) all you can eat, 2) characters, 3) restaurant rotation, and 4) views into a Disney attraction. Does Garden Grill have ALF and dinosaurs? Because if so, with those 6 things, it would be the greatest restaurant ever!
While this review covers dinner at Garden Grill, it’s worth noting that Garden Grill also serves Chip ‘n’ Dale’s Harvest Feast for both breakfast and lunch, as well. Breakfast is particularly intriguing as a way to access Soarin’ Around the World first-thing in the morning with a pre-park opening (PPO) Advance Dining Reservation (ADR). Although your better option for a PPO ADR is undoubtedly the Princess Storybook Dining Breakfast at Akershus Royal Banquet Hall, as Soarin’ doesn’t command the wait times as Frozen Ever After!
April 11, 2023 Update:Â On that above note about breakfast, the most important meal of the day (or so I learned at the Land pavilion) is finally returning! According to Walt Disney World, the Garden Grill Restaurant will resume serving breakfast on June 14, 2023.
Walt Disney World has not yet released Advance Dining Reservations for this foundational meal. The official website simply states: “Please check back soon to learn about booking reservations.”
Here’s a look at the 2023 breakfast menu for Garden Grill Restaurant:
Breakfast at Garden Grill Restaurant will be priced at $42 per adult and $27 per child (ages 3-9) plus tax and gratuity. To my knowledge, this was the exact price prior to closing, when breakfast was last offered at Garden Grill. It’s somewhat surprising that in over 3 years, the price will not increase at all.
In the meantime, input costs have soared for Walt Disney World due to inflation on food, higher wages, and other variables. As we’ve discussed previously in other posts about Walt Disney World raising food prices, it’s interesting to see where they do and do not attempt to pass along higher costs to consumers.
As we’ve said before, Walt Disney World charges what the market will bear, increasing prices not at the rate of inflation or because its costs are rising at a commensurate level, but because they can. Or in this case, presumably because they can’t. I suspect past pricing was a byproduct of the Disney Dining Plan, and the perception among those who purchased it that they were getting better bang for their buck. Without that, there’s no need to create an illusion of value, and a basic breakfast priced above $40 is more difficult to justify to people paying out of pocket.
On another positive note, it does not appear that Walt Disney World is embracing skimpflation or any other corner-cutting to maintain margins on breakfast at Garden Grill Restaurant. In fact, it would appear that the opposite is true, with the menu mostly the same save for one change: sausage links have been replaced by Grilled Flank Steak with Ranchero Sauce. If anything, this appears to be a slight upgrade, and is an addition that makes breakfast here a bit more unique. (Sausage links are ubiquitous at Walt Disney World, and the ones served here were fast food caliber.)
It feels like eons since we’ve done breakfast at Garden Grill. Honestly, I don’t even remember everything we ate. What I do recall is that it was relatively basic, with the highlight being cinnamon rolls (now called a Cinnamon Breakfast Loaf…I’m intrigued by this possible change). The Cheesy Potato Casserole was another highlight, but it was nothing special–you just can’t go wrong with cheese and potatoes for breakfast!
We’ll be doing breakfast at Garden Grill Restaurant after it returns (assuming we can score an ADR), so stay tuned for a full review! For now, here’s everything you need to know about lunch and dinner at Garden Grill Restaurant…
This restaurant has existed since The Land pavilion opened, but not always as Garden Grill. It used to be The Good Turn Restaurant, and before that it was The Land Grille Room. The restaurant has always rotated (hence its first name), but it was previously a higher caliber of restaurant before characters came onto the scene.
Back in the day when Kraft sponsored the Land pavilion, they served classy stuff…like Easy Mac! That’s not to say the character version is worse (I don’t recall our meals at The Land Grille Room, so I’m not qualified to make that judgment), it’s just different.
As far as ambiance goes, the main selling points here are the rotation and views into Living with the Land. Otherwise, Garden Grill has fairly bland ambiance, without much in the way of decor. However, rotation and the views into the attraction are two huge selling points from the perspective of ambiance.
Discounting them would be like saying “if you take away the stunning views and open air kitchen, California Grill’s ambiance isn’t so special.” The fact that it rotates and has views into an attraction is what defines the ambiance of Garden Grill. Even though it’s a character meal, this is primarily why we eat at Garden Grill. It would be difficult for it to offer much more in the way of ambiance.
My favorite part of the views into Living with the Land has to be the upstairs bedroom in the farmhouse, which looks like a “lived in” room. This room is not visible from the attraction, meaning that all of the details in there are solely for the sake of restaurant guests.
Perhaps I’m easily impressed, but I think that’s pretty awesome. I wish I had captured some decent photos of it, but I guess it’s something you’ll just have to check out when you dine there. Every time I look in that room I smile–to me, this is a prime example of Disney going that extra mile with details.
There are two tiers of seating at Garden Grill: a lower level closer to the attraction and an elevated upper level closer to the inner column. In the past we’ve eaten on the lower level, but on our most recent visit, we were seated in the upper level.
It’s difficult to see into the attraction from the upper level without standing up (I found myself standing up a lot!). Like Coral Reef, this is an ADR to which you want to arrive a little early to request a seat on the lower level.
The official name of the character dinner at Garden Grill is “Chip ‘N’ Dale’s Harvest Feast,” so it should be no surprise that two of the characters present are Chip and Dale. Farmer Mickey Mouse is also present, as is Pluto with a country-ish handkerchief tied around his neck.
Mickey’s outfit is unique here and stands out from what he’d normally wear, so he’s definitely the main draw. Note that it can take characters a long time to get to your table at Garden Grill, but this is because they seem to spend a decent amount of time at each table.
On each of our visits to Garden Grill, we’ve had ample time for interactions with the characters, including some spontaneous mischief with Chip and Dale. Granted, we usually eat early or late, so this type of experience should not be expected if you’re there during the dinner rush. It’s definitely a much better option for interactions than a large and popular restaurant like Chef Mickey’s.
As far as food goes, well…it’s an all you can eat restaurant. It’s also a family style restaurant, so the options are limited as compared to a buffet. It’s also somewhat on the pricey side.
This is not to say that the food is bad–we enjoyed the bread, the salad, the filet of beef, the fish, and the dessert–but there is only 1 starter (salad), 3 entrees (filet of beef, turkey, and sustainable fish), 3 sides (veggies, potatoes, rice), and 1 dessert (cobbler).
This means if you don’t like one or two things, you’ve potentially eliminated a lot of what you can eat. By contrast, most buffets have so many options that not liking a couple of things really makes no difference. Some of this food is supposedly sourced from The Land pavilion, although I’ve never been told which items.
I think the only change in the meal from the last time we were at Garden Grill a couple years ago was the fish, which was breaded last time (I preferred the breaded variety, Sarah preferred this meal’s Mahi Mahi).
Despite the limited menu, we felt the food was solid for an all you can eat meal. Not the best, but not the worst, either.
We enjoyed most of the options, so the menu being limited wasn’t a huge drawback for us. The bread and salad were both surprisingly good.
The filet of beef was the highlight for me, and it was surprisingly tender and flavorful. Sarah preferred the sustainable fish, which was very good for all you can eat fare, but not as good as an average plate you’d order from a standard table service restaurant.
The sides were all okay, but definitely could have been better. They were nothing that really knocked your socks off. The cobbler was the surprise hit of the meal, and it was very good.
In the past, when we’ve dined at Garden Grill, I was really impressed by the restaurant. From the views into one of my favorite attractions (yes, I’m a geek), to the rotation, to the food, to the fun character costumes, it’s always been one of my favorite restaurants at Epcot. This time, when reflecting on it after the trip, I wasn’t quite so “high” on it, and I think this is in part due to other experiences on the trip.
Unfortunately, Garden Grill doesn’t quite compete with newer character meals like Storybook Dining at Artist Point or Breakfast a la Art with Mickey and Friends at Topolino’s Terrace. Nor is it quite as ambitious (or delicious) as Tusker House or Boma.
I still really like Garden Grill, but relative to these other experiences, the standout part of the meal was the ambiance and the superb character interactions. This, obviously, is just a personal anecdote based on our other dining experiences, but everything at Walt Disney World is relative–after all, you can easily forgo a meal at one restaurant in favor of another.
Overall, Garden Grill still gets reasonably high marks, especially if you want an all-you-can-eat character meal with approachable and crowd-pleasing cuisine. From that perspective, Garden Grill beats its direct competitors. While we prefer other character meals with more ambitious cuisine, that won’t be the case for everyone.
Regardless, Garden Grill is a winner thanks to its great ambiance in a rotating dining room with views into Living with the Land and solid character interactions. The food is pretty good to above-average for character dining, but we think it could stand a menu with a few more options. If high quality cuisine is your primary concern, there are a number of better options at Epcot. However, if you’re a fan of Living with the Land/classic EPCOT Center, character dining, or family style dining, Garden Grill is a strong option that we recommend.
Planning other aspects of a Walt Disney World trip? Learn about hotels on our Walt Disney World Hotels Reviews page. To save money on tickets or determine which type to buy, read our Tips for Saving Money on Walt Disney World Tickets post. Our What to Pack for Disney Trips post takes a unique look at clever items to take. For what to do and when to do it, our Walt Disney World Ride Guides will help. For comprehensive advice, the best place to start is our Walt Disney World Trip Planning Guide for everything you need to know!
Your Thoughts
How do you think Garden Grill rates as compared to other character meals? What about its food and ambiance, in general? Planning on dining here? Do you agree or disagree with our advice? Any questions we can help you answer? Hearing your feedback–even when you disagree with us–is both interesting to us and helpful to other readers, so please share your thoughts below in the comments!
Hi Tom:
What’s the rotation status of Garden Grill these days? I’ve read on this blog (and others) that it isn’t rotating consistently. This could affect our ADR; I have kids just over nine years old and so now have to pay adult pricing! I’m not sure that I want to do that if the rotation isn’t working. Thanks!!
I’m interested in this answer too . Never been and hoping to go on our next trip – but rotation is definitely one of the reasons we are thinking about this restaurant. Thanks!
As of Nov 25th, 2019 – here for Thanksgiving week and have been in the Land Pavilion several times. Garden Grill is not rotating. Hoping it’s just temporary. If it’s no longer rotating, that wouldn’t stop us from doing an 8:00am breakfast (we really enjoy the breakfast and then rope dropping Soarin), but it also wouldn’t be the same.
We loved it. Food was served quickly, although a little more choice would have been nice, but there was plenty of it. The waitress was lovely and kept bringing more food. The visits by the characters was the best part. It was obvious that they aim to serve you and complete your meal within a complete circulation of the restaurant (it rotates) which takes approx 1 hour.
We love Garden Grill for breakfast. The cinnamon rolls are amazing. The fruit bowl is one of the best. They even have hazelnut sauce for the waffles. IT is a favorite of the kids on property.
hi Tom you probably already know this but just incase you didnt the room you describe as looking like a live in room in the house is a replica of Walts bedroom as a child and has remained unchanged just incase he ever wants to come home everything is an exact match from the furniture right down to colour etc
Since this is a “buffet”, can children under the age of 3 eat off of the parents plate for free?
Made the mistake of eating at this restaurant the menue outside the enterance did not say it was all you can eat. $45 per person , $27 for kids was a bit much. The server admitted very few people request seconds. The food was average. Ate at Jiko in animal Kingdom had a $45 dollar antre that was excellent. Ate here many years ago and it was a true grill, seafood pizza, burgers, etc. Would not recommend
Would an 8am adr help get out into frozen ever after early? I know it’s in future world, but can you access world showcase early too?
We have three kids ages, 13,11 and8 and where thinking of doing this character meal with my parents. I was thinking this might be a low key character meal vs Chef Mickey. My parents are in their early 70’s.
When we went to this restaurant we hadn’t booked and when we asked if we could have a table were told we’d have to wait over an hour – we agreed but were surprised when we went in that it was 2/3’rds empty?!
Our server was one of the worst we’ve ever had. He kept forgetting things and didn’t once bring us everything at one time, so we got mashed potato’s but nothing else and it went cold whilst we waited for him to bring some meat.
We kept ordering everything again when he bought anything as we hoped to get it all together – and we asked him to do this but he didn’t. He wouldn’t explain why he wouldn’t/couldn’t bring everything together and we didn’t get enough to eat, we were all still hungry at the end of this meal.
We were really fed up and found the going round bit really boring after the first time round!
The characters were good though and Chip and Dale did make fun out of my older teenager who was getting VERY fed up with them – one of them nearly got a punch from him when they’d wound him up for the 7th time and then realised they’d gone too far and left him alone from then!
We would not recommend this restaurant at all.
Love this place, we just had breakfast there 14Nov2016 it was great.
We booked an 8:00am breakfast in January, and walked quickly to be the first ones in the door that morning. The whole character gang was out front to greet us, and we got a photo with ALL of them together! Every time we’ve eaten here the characters have been so spot-on (example: Pluto taking my 5 year old on a walk; Chip n Dale getting into a napkin and straw fight over our table and encouraging my kids to join in) that I’ve always made sure to give glowing feedback to the manager in duty!! We love Garden Grill!
My wife and I ate here last year, and overall had a great experience. I agree the food was good, not great, while my wife didn’t like hardly any of it. She said it was all too salty. She might’ve been right, but I liked it. However, the service was outstanding. My wife told our waitress she wasn’t a fan of the food, and the waitress very quickly and willingly brought out multiple items for her to try. My wife doesn’t like cobbler, so the waitress then told people it was her birthday, so she could get a cupcake, and then also a card signed by all the characters at the restaurant. In addition to an outstanding wait staff, the characters were great as well. One of them, I think chip, stayed at our table for about 30 mintues, just playing around with us, acting like he wanted my wife to ditch me, and go home with him, eating my food, taking my keys, etc. I’m not a huge fan of character meals, because I don’t have anything to do/say to the characters, but they did a great job of just making it a fun time for two twenty-somethings.
Also for those with food allergies or if your just a picky eater there is always a way to look online to see the menu before you make a reservation there.
Well I think his review of this restaurant is one sided like most reviews are , meaning like many restaurant everyone will have their own opinion of what they liked and disliked. I myself and my family love this stop on our trip to Disney every time. When making reservations for our dining plan this is always the first of many we make, but definitely our favorite. We love the food and the view weather on the top level or the bottom. I’m there for the kids to see the charactersand eat, if I want to see the scenery then I’ll go on the ride that is available. The food is delicious and always taste good. Not every restaurant can make everyone happy. I LOVE GARDEN GRILL!!!!!
I’ve always loved the Living with the Land (my mom’s name is Brenda Jones, and she always wanted a yellow house with a wrap-around porch, so she claims the house there is hers!) I have a dairy allergy, and Disney is great about working around it, but I’ve never eaten here, and wondered how they would deal with it, since the meal is served family style.
I think I might be crazy, because I’ve eaten at a ton of Disney restaurants and I still think the food here is out of this world good. I can’t find reviews that agree with me lol I had eaten here a ton of times as a kid and went back as an adult, honestly not expecting much because it wasn’t one of my favorites as a kid.
I thought the bread was incredible, the beef was amazing, and the potatoes are some of my favorite potatoes I’ve ever had.
They’re willing to bring out the kid’s plate too, which comes with chicken legs, sweet potato fries and mac n cheese.
I also think the atmosphere in this place is incredible on the lower level. You just cannot beat that level of privacy. No one but your waiter/waitress can see you and because of the privacy, none of the characters feel rushed.
It is truly a wonderful restaurant, and it sucks because there are so many awesome restaurants to try in epcot and it’s so hard for me to resist booking Garden Grill so I can try them! Haha.
Anyway, it’s one of my favorite places to eat ever, mainly because of the food! (Call me crazy haha) I’m going back to Disney some time this year though (going to Garden Grill again, lol) and I’m excited to try Boma and Ohana for dinner. I’ve never done either so it will be interesting 🙂
I don’t think there’s anything crazy about that at all. Granted, it’s not my absolute favorite restaurant at Walt Disney World, but it is a sentimental favorite!
Our crew – 2 grandparents, 2 parents, and a toddler visited Garden Grill a year ago. We LOVED it! Most reviews called food ‘ok’, ‘good’, ‘the worst’ – maybe we just got lucky but our meals were wonderful – FAR better than we anticipated from a character meal! Everything was very fresh, perfectly cooked and delicious. We have eaten at many WDW restaurants and found GG to be far better than average! Servers were great, and character interaction was AWESOME! We would highly recommend!
My daughter and I have eaten here twice. The first time was definitely better than the second. I think that is because we were on the lower level the first time and on the upper level the second time (definitely took away from the experience) and the second time we went, they did not seat us until almost 45 minutes after our reservation time. I was very upset by this and the manager personally cleared and prepared a table for us (eventually). Because we were seated so late, we had to rush through our dinner to make it to Illuminations which just ruined the whole experience. On the plus side, the characters here are hilarious and spend a lot of time goofing around with the kids. Our waitress was amazing and very attentive knowing that we were trying to make it to the fireworks. The food was good (my daughter says they have the best steak in the world so she’s disappointed we are not eating here in September.) I know this is a family style meal, but my daughter(age 6 on our trip in Feb.) and I can easily gobble down all of the food and then ask for more. The cobbler–really you are expected to share that? I can easily eat the whole thing and in my mind I always want more–it’s so good! Of course I never ask for more when it is actually supposed to feed a family and I eat it by myself. Now I’m going to have to try Artist Point’s cobbler since you said it blows this one out of the water!
We ate here the week of my 4yr old’s birthday. He has several food allergies and outside of Disney often feels left out on the rare occasion that we eat out. All of Disney was good about having having options for him but Garden Grill was the best. I’ve heard several other allergy parents say the same thing. He loves Mickey and Pluto so the combination of seeing them and feeling included made him very happy.
I was expecting the food to be just ok and because of the timing of our ADRs that day we weren’t very hungry at this meal. Surprisingly the food was very good and I wish I’d had room for more. We decided to eat here for their allergy friendliness and the characters. I thought it would be a one time thing but we will definitely eat here again.
We were disappointed with this one.
It wasn’t rotating the day we went, the staff were the most miserable we met at wdw and our server said our kids had to have what we had (which they didn’t enjoy) and then gave the next table fries!
My husband found it quite claustrophobic.
That said Chip n Dale were great and Mickey had a lot more time than at chef mickeys or Tusker house.
Really wish it had rotated! We would have forgiven the rest!