Walt Disney World’s Epcot To Add New Restaurant To American Adventure Pavilion

Walt Disney World’s Epcot will be getting a new, table-service restaurant for the fist time in decades, bringing a sit-down establishment to World Showcase’s American Adventure pavilion.

As Orlando Business Journal reports, Disney Parks announced Monday that the company will soon be addressing an inconsistency that has been apparent at the park for four decades. World Showcase has 11 pavilions, each representing a different country (Canada, Mexico, Italy, and so on), and each one includes at least one or two walk-up food stands, as well as at least one table-service restaurant offering up the best of each country’s cuisine.

However, the American Adventure pavilion was alone in not having a sit-down restaurant, only a walk-up stand offering up “American” fare such as burgers and hot dogs (which are European in origin, but that’s another discussion entirely).

Now, however, that walk-up burger stand, the Liberty Inn, is going to be shuttered. In its place will be a sit-down restaurant offering what may be the only uniquely American form of cuisine: BBQ. Here’s how the Disney Parks blog describes the new restaurant, to be named “Regal Eagle Smokehouse: Craft Drafts & Barbecue.”

“The new location will be a modern barbecue smokehouse, with all the accompanying sights, sounds, smells and flavors you love – including a large smoker preparing fine food every day right on the pavilion’s promenade.”

The next time you're in Epcot, be sure to make some time to peruse one of the best kept secrets of World Showcase — the “hidden” gallery at The American Adventure! https://t.co/O7BgFvtJ1v pic.twitter.com/jTZZXG0s6Q

— Disney Parks (@DisneyParks) February 22, 2019

As of this writing, details of the menu remain under wraps. The new restaurant is expected to open by the end of this year.

The past few years have seen Epcot become something of a food mecca. In addition to the mostly permanent table-service restaurants and walk-up food spots, the park is home to the insanely popular Epcot International Food and Wine Festival each fall, which sees pop-up booths offering cuisine not just from Epcot’s existing host pavilions, but from all over the world.

Meanwhile, the planned addition to Epcot comes as Epcot itself is experiencing a reawakening. Nearing its 40th birthday, the park has been showing signs of age. However, a new Guardians of the Galaxy-themed attraction is replacing the aged Universe of Energy, and Future World as a whole is due for a massive upgrade in the coming years.

Meanwhile, the entire Florida resort is also in the midst of a giant renaissance. Two new sections of Disney’s Hollywood Studios theme park will have opened by the end of this year, and a new gondola system is being installed to shuffle guests to and fro. New resort hotels are being built, and new attractions are in the works for Epcot and other parks.