3 Disney World Restaurants Are About to Permanently Shut Down

Disney World fans have a lot of mixed feelings about the retheme coming to DinoLand USA in Disney’s Animal Kingdom.

Chip and Dale in DinoLand

It was confirmed at D23: The Ultimate Disney Fan Event earlier this year that this area of the park will officially be transformed into a Tropical Americas section. DINOSAUR will become a new Indiana Jones attraction that takes guests through a Mayan Temple, and a new Encanto attraction will be added into the new area (PLUS a new carousel too!), which we know will be called Pueblo Esperanza. While we’re sad to say goodbye to the iconic rides in this area of the park, we also think it’s important that we recognize what ELSE we’re losing with the retheme that a lot of people are forgetting about.

Not only are we losing two attractions (but gaining three!), DinoLand USA is full of tons of other attractions that we’ll be losing too, including the three restaurants in this section of the park.

Restaurantosaurus

Now, we’re hoping that Disney will keep these buildings and transform them into something new, but we have no way of knowing that for sure. While Restaurantosaurus doesn’t serve the greatest food and has the hardest name known to man to spell, that still doesn’t mean we won’t miss it.

Take breaks in air conditioning!

The theming and story behind this restaurant is really what we’ll miss, not to mention the massive amount of INDOOR seating and that amazing AC. The theming of DinoLand as a whole follows Chester and Hester, who own the gas station turned dinosaur shop and carnival game station after dinosaur bones were discovered in the area to try and profit off of the tourists and paleontologists flocking to the area.

So many details!

Restaurantosaurus, however, was the dorm for the paleontology students who came into the area when dinosaur bones were discovered, and after they were gone, Chester and Hester decided to turn it into a restaurant! That means that there are so many nods to paleontology and the students that lived there all over — it’s truly so immersive if you take the time to really look around. To quote a recent review left on our website:

“I have always enjoyed the theme of the is restaurant with its dig site cantina vibe. I’m going to miss this entire land.”

Dino bones are everywhere

We’ll also really be missing Trilo-Bites, which again, wasn’t anything super special, but it is home to the Buffalo Chicken Chips we’re pretty big fans of.

Sage and Emmo with their Buffalo Chicken Chips

And we can’t forget about Dino Bite Snacks, where we love to grab those MASSIVE seasonal Ice Cream Cookie Sandwiches!

Dig Ice Cream Sandwich from Dino Bite Snacks

Not to mention, we’re also saying goodbye to The Boneyard, which is a fantastic, immersive playground for kiddos to get their energy out. Honestly, adults are allowed to play in here too (and Emma’s done it for a video!), and we love that. We’re hoping Disney will just retheme it and replace it with another similar type of playground, but we’ll have to wait and see.

The Boneyard

Disney has stated that this retheme will begin as early as this fall, but will take place in stages, so the entirety of the land won’t close all at once. If we had to guess (and this is just a GUESS), we’re thinking we’ll see the carnival game area and TriceraTop Spin go first, so you may still have more time to experience DINOSAUR and these two restaurants!