It and Jungle Market Eatery have both been removed from the app and website too. Bruh
To be fair, if they’re not going to have it open regularly, I’d rather them not advertise it, and just open it up on busy days as a bonus restaurant when the capacity is needed. Same for Dogwood’s, which was also removed from the app. I wouldn’t be surprised if we still see either of these open on busy Haunt days, for example. At least removing them from the app reduces confusion among guests who might go looking for it.
KD has always had an issue of having
way too many restaurants. For example, Jungle Market Eatery is literally like 20 steps away from Outpost Cafe. Outpost is the nicer restaurant with the better menu, and JME’s menu is basically redundant with Juke Box Diner’s, so it’s not shocking that they’ve killed it (although the loss of air conditioned seating is a bummer). You can see how KD has tried to address this in recent years, with Country Kitchen turning into the prestige lounge, Border Burrito turning into the funnel cake bakery, and the old Subway into a Coke and ICEE refresh station. I’m actually surprised that Chicken Shack has not only survived but got a full renovation, but maybe the park sees value in selling food in that distant corner of Jungle X.
An interesting nugget I picked up on SF’s last earnings call was that the CFO, Brian Witherow, mentioned that the regional theme park industry’s staffing model has been flipped on its head over the past few years due to the increased cost of labor. He mentioned that the cost of labor has nearly doubled in the course of a few years. Whereas traditionally parks defaulted to fully staffing the parks, then letting staff go home based on what the day’s attendance justified, the opposite is now true — they default to minimally staffing the parks, then only bring in additional staff as needed to meet the needs of the day’s attendance. I think this insight helps explain (and honestly gives me a little more patience for) the staffing changes we’ve observed not just at KD but at BGW over the past few years. I also think it sort of vindicates all of use who’ve felt like the parks have been operating differently lately (we’re not crazy!).
In the pantheon of issues plaguing KD thanks to the merger, I think closing off some of the park’s minor restaurants on non-peak days is small potatoes. And I think removing them from the website and map is the better choice for the consumer experience. It would be nice if they at least kept Jungle Market Eatery open for the indoor seating, and maybe as just a drink station (it has the coveted Coke freestyle machines!), though.
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