My New Favorite EPCOT Meal Isn’t in EPCOT.

EPCOT is widely regarded as Walt Disney World’s “foodie park” thanks largely to World Showcase, which some fans consider the culinary capital of WDW. Unpopular opinion, but we view this reputation is largely overblown. This isn’t to say EPCOT’s restaurants are bad, just slightly overrated.

To be sure, EPCOT does have a formidable food lineup and the perpetual festivals contribute to that. If going by the sheer number of options that are above-average, EPCOT is the #1 food park at Walt Disney World. However, we’d argue that many (if not most) of these are nothing special once the novelty has worn off. Good-to-great options for first timers, but once you’ve been a few times–or can compare them to past versions of the same spots–they start losing their luster.

There are a few true top-tier standouts, with Takumi-Tei and Monsieur Paul being among the top 3 restaurants in all of Walt Disney World. Le Cellier has also made a comeback in recent years and is one of the better steakhouses once again. One problem is time. The first two meals are multi-hour affairs, and even Le Cellier is time-consuming. This is probably a good thing given the prices, which are the second problem. Takumi-Tei and Monsieur Paul will set you back at least $200 per person, and it’s hard to get out the door at Le Cellier without dropping $100 a head.

If I didn’t have to pay the bill at the end, I’d do every single EPCOT meal at one of those three restaurants. Maybe with the occasional stop at the other table service restaurants in the Japan and France pavilions, but even those can be hit or miss. Don’t get us wrong, we still love eating our way around EPCOT, but it’s usually for food booth favorites–the quality of the best dishes has improved over the years and value for money has actually improved “thanks” to inflation and higher restaurant menu prices.

Suffice to say, there’s a reason why Via Napoli and Space 220 are the culinary representatives of EPCOT on our list of the 25 Best Restaurants at Walt Disney World in 2025. No one is going to accuse either of those of being the pinnacle of WDW dining, but they offer reliably fun and fantastic experiences along with mostly good cuisine.

Anyway, this is all a long-winded setup to explain why we actually do most of our EPCOT day meals outside of EPCOT when there isn’t something to be done “for the sake of research” or an ongoing festival. If it’s just a meal for fun, we usually look beyond World Showcase and head out the International Gateway exit.

This is doubly true when I’m traveling solo. In all my years of doing this, I still have not gotten completely comfortable dining alone in many high-profile table service restaurants–especially in the parks. Probably an insecurity that’s all in my head, but it’s there, nevertheless. What I’ve found is that the non-Signature resort restaurants are much more laid back, tend to see more solo travelers (conventioneers), and are just generally more attractive to me.

Enter my new favorite (again) restaurant in the EPCOT area: Crew’s Cup Lounge at Disney’s Yacht Club Resort.

Longtime readers might recall that Crew’s Cup Lounge used to be one of our favorite dining spots in all of Walt Disney World. There was a time when we dined here more than any other restaurant at Walt Disney World, save for perhaps Sunshine Seasons and Cosmic Ray’s. That should tell you just how far we’re going back–it was before the opening of Ale & Compass around the corner.

Things changed a while ago. The deceptively simple but shockingly delicious burger that we loved so much was replaced. The replacement, while still good, got progressively more expensive. To the point that we wondered why we were paying a premium for an only-okay burger when countless better options existed.

Equally as important, we became reluctant fans of Ale & Compass. The menu there improved and our opinion of the interior softened. It along with Trattoria al Forno proved to be excellent mid-tier table service restaurants in the Crescent Lake area. Same goes for almost a half-dozen options over at the Swolphin. (I can’t help but give a bit of side-eye when fans bemoan the lack of quality sit-down dining options at Crescent Lake. They’re abundant. It’s counter service that’s the issue.)

In any case, we finally returned to Crew’s Cup following a menu overhaul in early 2020. Minus an underwhelming “fancy” hot dog, the new menu was strong. Crew’s Cup was a champion once again! But we never got around to publishing a review due to, ahem, intervening externalities.

Fast-forward another ~5 years, and Crew’s Cup menu is once again formidable. So I headed out to see whether my favorite meal from that last overhaul that had been restored still lived up to my memories, or if nostalgia was clouding my judgment.

This is already long, so I’m going to dig right into the main course before working backwards with comments on the interior and atmosphere of Crew’s Cup Lounge…

My new favorite EPCOT meal is the Prime Rib Sliders at Crew’s Cup Lounge. Again.

This combines Yachtsman Steakhouse’s signature Onion Rolls piled high with Prime Rib along with horseradish cream and au jus on the side. They’re served with House-made Chips.

The ‘backstory’ on the sliders is basically the Walt Disney World culinary equivalent of a late night kitchen raid. The chefs at Yachtsman Steakhouse combined their iconic pull-apart onion rolls with prime rib on a lark and, voilà, it became an instant-favorite of the Cast Members. If you’ve ever had the signature rolls or the prime rib at Yachtsman Steakhouse, you can imagine how this tastes.

The Prime Rib Sliders at Crew’s Cup Lounge have quickly become a fan favorite for the same reasons. In actuality, the whole is inexplicably better than the sum of its delicious parts.

The onion rolls are one of the top 3 bread services in all of Walt Disney World, right up there with Sanaa and Sebastian’s Bistro. They are dense, buttery, and flaky, allowing you to peel off their layers…like an onion! We order these every time we dine at Yachtsman Steakhouse, and I was tempted to get a standalone order of them at Crew’s Cup Lounge, too.

The prime rib is similarly fantastic. It’s tender, thinly-sliced (but not shaved), and served warm. The meat is juicy and has the perfect amount of fat for flavor. This combo alone is a high quality and delicious one-two punch, and the sliders would be fantastic without anything else.

The also excellent horseradish cream really puts them over the top, though.

All it takes is a light amount to enhance the flavor of the already excellent meat and onion rolls. You don’t want to get too heavy-handed, because the prime rib and roll should have the starring role. (Get it? Speaking of which, we really miss Starring Rolls Cafe. Another thing to bring back, Disney.)

The au jus was fine. I have zero complaints about it, but felt it didn’t add as much as the horseradish; the two together were too much. For the sake of research, I also tested the Black Garlic Aïoli with the Prime Rib Sliders. This is excellent on pretty much everything, but I found it to be a tad too much here. Again, the onion rolls and prime rib are so good on their own that you really don’t want anything getting in the way of that.

Speaking of which, the Prime Rib Sliders are served with the house-made chips, which are also a stand-alone menu item (House-made Chips with Smoked Paprika Salt and served with Black Garlic Aïoli).

These were tasty, but nothing to write home about. At best, a slight upgrade to the fairly standard house-made chips served around Walt Disney World.

The issue, from my perspective, was that the chips paired with the Black Garlic Aïoli were just too much. And I say this as someone who loves Black Garlic Aïoli. It didn’t help that my chips were bathed in that smoked paprika salt.

On the other hand, the Truffle Fries were fantastic. These are Hand-cut Fries covered in Herbed Parmesan and served with that same Black Garlic Aïoli.

These have been a staple of the Crew’s Cup Lounge menu for as long as I can remember. At least a decade. Part of the reason we loved the burger back in the day was getting a substitution of the Truffle Fries to go along with it.

The presentation has changed a bit over time and the accompanying sauce is different, but these hold up. They’re every bit the all-star today that there were 10 years ago. And that’s rare with Walt Disney World menus.

These house-made fries would be excellent on their own, but everyone knows that truffles make anything better. That plus the rich Black Garlic Aïoli makes these fries amazing. It’s almost awesome overload, but unlike the chips, the flavors just work together.

The Truffle Fries at Crew’s Cup Lounge are a flawless, 10/10 no notes side. You must order these.

With all of these praise heaped on Crew’s Cup Lounge, it is not without issues.

My complaint back in the day was that everything kept getting more expensive. Surprise, surprise: that’s still true! In this case, I’d be less annoyed by price increases over the course of ~5 years since everything has gone up. Not just at Walt Disney World. Everywhere. 

The bigger issue is that my go-to meal here used to consist of three Prime Rib Sliders and were served with a side of fries (which you may or may not have been able to upgrade to Truffle Fries) that was the case the last time I ordered these, on March 3, 2020. As of 2025, it’s two sliders and the inferior chips. You still might be able to upgrade to Truffle Fries as the side–I didn’t try. (It was hit or miss in the past; I suspect that’s still true.)

I hate complaining about this type of thing, as “shrinkflation” is ubiquitous, and it isn’t exactly helpful to anyone reading this. Okay, cool story dude. Let me go jump right in my time machine and go back five years to when everything was bigger and cheaper. Most of you probably don’t have time machines, and those who do could probably put them to better use than obtaining larger and less expensive sliders. I dunno.

Aside from the triumphant return of the Prime Rib Sliders, the other reason I paid a visit to Crew’s Cup Lounge was to watch the Detroit Lions game on a screen larger than my phone. One of the reasons I didn’t really care about losing ESPN Club was because I’ve always preferred watching games here.

The lighting is low here, it’s usually pretty quiet and uncrowded (as you can see from my photos) especially earlier in the evening. To each their own, but I’m not really a fan of sports bars–I prefer bars that happen to air sports. One person’s “high-energy” atmosphere is another’s obnoxious one. I’d rather watch the game in peace, and that’s doubly true if Sarah is with me–it’s a compromise that we’re eating somewhere with a television, in the first place. Your mileage may vary on that, though.

The inside of the Crew’s Cup Lounge is sophisticated and upscale–exactly what you’d expect from the Yacht Club. It has an abundance of masculine woods, and reminds me of a quiet place Teddy Roosevelt would come for some whisky after a long day of sculling. Even if you don’t get down with rowing, it’s the perfect place to decompress during a day at EPCOT or Disney’s Hollywood Studios.

Here are more photos of the interior of Crew’s Cup Lounge, including seating and thematic details and the surrounding area (for those unfamiliar with Yacht Club):

The bottom line is that if you’re dining at Crew’s Cup for the first time today, unburdened by the knowledge that they used to be bigger and cheaper, you’ll love these Prime Rib Sliders and the Truffle Fries. We’d highly recommend inquiring with your server as to whether it’s possible to substitute the chips for fries as the slider’s side.

As for the other items on the menu, the Lobster Bisque soup was excellent the last time we had it at Yachtsman Steakhouse. I have no use for salads except as a means to an end (healthiness, I guess), so I’m the wrong person to review those. I’ve heard good things, if that’s your jam.

I’m also not particularly keen on charcuterie or shrimp cocktails in a restaurant setting unless it’s something really special (so basically, just St. Elmo’s). Otherwise, I feel like I can arrange meats and cheeses on a plate at home; same goes for shrimp.

To be fully transparent, I mention all of these other dishes on purpose…so I don’t feel guilted into ordering that stuff in the future “for research” when I go back. I do hope that Crew’s Cup further distinguishes itself from Yachtsman Steakhouse and brings back a few more long-lost menu items, as there are some gems that have been lost to time.

For now, I already know my favorite items on the current menu at Crew’s Cup are, without question, the Prime Rib Sliders and the Truffle Fries. I will be placing this exact order “for fun” at Walt Disney World in the future, which is the highest praise I can give any meal–that I’d vote with my wallet/stomach and buy it again and again.

These two dishes in this decompressing setting while watching the Detroit Lions and seated next to the butcher’s window are about the most Distinctly Patriotic experience you can have at Walt Disney World. It’s all enough to overpower the senses and make Sam Eagle (who is not a Birds fan!) shed a single tear.

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Your Thoughts

Have you dined at Crew’s Cup Lounge in Yacht Club Resort at Walt Disney World? If you’ve had the Prime Rib Sliders or the Truffle Fries, how would you rate them? Think famed Detroit Lions fan Sam Eagle (that’s canon now) would dub this the most Distinctly Patriotic WDW dining experience? Do you agree or disagree with restaurant review? Any questions we can help you answer? Hearing feedback about your experiences is both interesting to us and helpful to other readers, so please share your thoughts below in the comments!