From Wilderness Lodge to Fort Wilderness, we see a different kind of cut enacted. Recently, the all you can eat buffet location Trail's End has trimmed its lunchtime offerings. Previously, the service line included such hot items as fried chicken, pizza, and a BBQ plate of the day (an example might be beef brisket). Now, though, the menu has shrunk to only cold foods, with heavy emphasis on sandwiches and cold cuts.

Cast Members on location are willing to talk about the reasons: the previous menu didn't really attract all that many patrons; there were days when fewer than 100 people in total showed up for lunchtime service. Such lagging attendance meant that a good deal of the food had to be thrown away, since you can't re-use pizza and fried chicken the way you can re-use cold cuts the next day. So, voila, a decision was reached to shift the menu to something that generated less waste.

All that hot food went to waste.

It's less of a bargain, though. The new menu does feature a reduction in price (from $12.99 to $11.99), and it's still a pretty good deal if you've got a strong appetite and want to really load up on calories. But the old menu, for a single dollar more, offered much greater variety and the "luxury" of hot food.

Operationally, I do understand the reasons for the shift, and I'm less inclined to call shenanigans on this decision. Still, though, it's troubling that it fits a pattern elsewhere around the resort to tighten belts with regard to food. Every little bit adds up to the actual experience of the end user.

This kind of change is not just occurring at the hotels. The parks are seeing some of it too. Over at Liberty Tree Tavern in the Magic Kingdom, the character meals have been discontinued as of January 5, 2009. Previously, the pattern was for regular (a la carte) lunch menu and an all-you-can-eat character dinner menu for $29. Granted, the all-you-can-eat part was mitigated in that it's done via regular table service, and you have to request more items of your server verbally, and my gut tells me that people eat less this way than if they are granted access to get up and grab the food themselves from a serving line.

It's a feast, all right, but you feel so… shameful … in asking for more.

Again, it's not hard to see what the logic is behind the move. Let's disabuse ourselves of any notion that this was done due to customer demand. Anyone with children can see that the character meals are overcrowded, not underutilized. The character meals offer a chance to kill two birds with one stone: you get to eat (which you have to do anyway) and you get to see characters (which you would otherwise have to stand in line for).

Before I lived in Orlando, I was against character meals in my personal situation, because I didn't have kids. Since moving here and having kids, I still don't visit character meals often, because we're local and seeing the characters doesn't have the same effect on our kids as those who visit from afar. But even though WE don't use character meals, I still think the parks should offer them for the infrequent visitors who relish them.

So while the new evening dining at Liberty Tree Tavern will work to my personal benefit, I think it's a net loss for the park. And we still haven't figured out why they are making the switch. My guess would be that having characters adds cost (you have to pay the characters, and their handlers) and it greatly diminishes the revenue stream.

How does it do the latter? Simple. If you've got characters roaming around in the dining room, families are inclined to sit in the same table until all characters have made it around, which usually takes about 45 minutes. But if the characters were absent, doesn't it stand to reason that families might finish in 40, or even 35 minutes instead? Those five and ten minute savings do add up to the facility, when seen in the context of the whole evening. For each table, you could seat an additional family during the evening hours, reaping thousands of dollars of additional income.

It looks, in other words, like another cost-saving technique. Good for the company, not so good for the character-starved paying public.

Admittedly, this next item is on a much smaller scale than those previously mentioned. But it's a part of the discussion when small items disappear, since it happens all the time, and the entire point here is that things get taken away in bits and pieces, not all at once.

At Pinocchio Village Haus, one of the sandwiches has disappeared. The turkey and bacon panini ($7.29, the most expensive item on the menu) is no longer listed, and in fact the menu board is blank where it used to reside (this is also a problem in that it's an instance of "bad show"). There was also a Philly Cheesesteak sandwich that took up residence in this spot on the menu board for a little while.

It's interesting that the highest-priced item on the menu is the one to be removed, especially when seen in context of the other changes noted today. Is this yet more blanding of the menu? If so, this example illustrates that the effect of the DDP extends beyond the table-service menus to a similar homogenization at the counter-service locations.

The 2007 holiday season saw some big crowds at Pinocchio Village Haus.

The menu at Pinocchio Village Haus is now noticeable for how few items it contains: pizza, chicken nuggets, and salad. As a former restaurant guy myself, I have a pretty good idea of the rationale to restrict menu items, especially at quick service. For starters, the line moves faster when there are fewer choices, meaning more money. Also, the fewer items you have, the less variety of things you have to order in raw foodstuffs, so you realize cost savings there, too.

Yet surely there are limits. While it's true the company can and should avoid wasting money, might there not be some balance of "company interest" and "patron interest" that yields good money for the restaurant yet preserves choice, quality, and value for the customer? I have to wonder if the limited menu we're now facing has crossed the line there, at least with regard to choice.

Another trivial item here, but one worth mentioning. Have you ever had Figaro Fries from Pinocchio Village Haus? You start with French fries (the newer, healthier, and more crispy ones they started making in the past year), add a generous dollop of melted cheddar cheese, a big scoop of crumbled bacon, a healthy handful of shredded lettuce, a large spoonful of diced tomatoes, and finish it off with a drizzle of Ranch dressing. Depending on your preferences, that may sound delightful or disgusting, but I found myself liking the result, despite thinking it sounded pretty horrible in theory. Over the years, they've become somewhat famous in the fan community, though certainly not for reasons of healthful eating!

The Figaro Fries are still on the menu, not to fret. You might therefore be forgiven for breathing a sigh of relief when you get to the restaurant and place your order. Try to contain your shock, however, when the tray of food arrives and something new and different stares back up at you. What comes out of the kitchen is now bacon-cheddar fries, with no lettuce, tomato, or Ranch dressing.

When I asked a manager if this was intentional, he assured me it was. The new policy has the Figaro Fries coming with lettuce and tomato by request only, and Ranch is available at the condiment stand. While this sounds reasonable, there's no communication to the customer on the menu. Why not state in small print that lettuce and tomato are added by request?

It's possible that management removed the lettuce, tomatoes, and ranch due to customer complaints (do customers really think that Figaro Fries automatically means just bacon/cheese fries?), but that strikes me as less likely than a desire to cut back on ingredients, and to save costs. Again.

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© 2008 Kevin Yee