My Year With The Mouse

Today I’m going to talk about the Jolly Holiday Bakery Cafe. Jolly Holiday is new and in a word, simply splendid. Well, two words. Anyway, it’s lovely. Don’t “splendid” and “lovely” sound like words Mary Poppins would use? I can’t remember–it’s been a while since I’ve seen the movie.

It’s a Jolly Holiday with Mary…

It’s named after Mary Poppins, by the way.

The Jolly Holiday occupies what I previously called the Single Most Wasted Space In The Entire Park back in July 2011, the Plaza Pavilion being used as the Annual Pass processing center. But shortly after that they closed down the AP processing and remade the Plaza Pavilion into the Jolly Holiday Bakery Cafe, and I’m ever-so-thankful.

Appropriately, natty little penguins decorate the Jolly Holiday. This is the back of the welcome sign:

Don’t stay away too long? Don’t worry–I won’t!

I was there with my friend Amy, a huge Mary Poppins fan, so she was happy to pose with the penguins.

Seriously, the Jolly Holiday makes me want a pet penguin

It was a bit crowded, but the line moved quickly. Inside there are lots of beautiful little touches. Disney sure knows how to do it right. Like this period wallpaper border.

I’d love to have this in my house

When you enter the Jolly Holiday, the line is split in half, with each half being a complete counter for service rather than one long counter. This is a fabulous setup and allows for maximum speed and space usage. The bakery part of Jolly Holiday replaces the Blue Ribbon Bakery on Main Street, which had a terrible setup. The Blue Ribbon Bakery is now a thing of the past, to provide space for an expansion of the Carnation Cafe and the Gibson Girl Ice Cream Parlor. I count this as a win-win, because both the Carnation Cafe and the Gibson Girl Ice Cream Parlor seriously needed the space, and because it brought us the Jolly Holiday, with which I am in love. And another win–the Plaza Pavilion gets used as something more appropriate to its location and original incarnation (which was a buffet restaurant).

Mary Poppins knicknacks are held in glass cases.

Love the penguin on the left. What is it about penguins that make them so lovable?

And there’s a tree mural that has a long back story, with a happy first part, sad middle part, and mostly happy ending.

It all has to do with a beautiful mural that existed in the Plaza Pavilion that was accidentally destroyed and then lovingly re-imagined. The story is best told by former Disney artist Kevin Kidney in his first blog entry on the subject here, and his follow-up here.

The end result is this:

With little vignettes of Mary Poppins throughout

The Jolly Holiday has got it all–not just a bakery, but also a soup-salad-sandwich (both hot and cold) place.

Keep the hot side hot

and the cold side cold

Disney has made a concerted effort to offer a greater variety of higher quality food, and the Jolly Holiday delivers in spades. I’d already eaten dinner by the time Amy and I got there, but I’ll definitely be sampling some of the offerings in the future.

Yum yum yum

You can see the whole menu at allears.net.

And did I mention the penguins? Because I totally love the penguins. And since the layout of the Jolly Holiday is such that the line and the service area come to a T shape, it’s difficult to see which register is open. Therefore, you follow the jolly penguin.

Adorbs!

Amy and I decided to get some dessert and hot chocolate. Actually we both got Abuelita, which a Mexican-style hot chocolate (chocolate with cinnamon and a big dash of yum). I’m pretty sure Mary Poppins didn’t have her beloved old Abuelita (pet name for Grandma) but the hot chocolate version is delish.

Amy got the cheesecake:

Gaily festooned with a chocolate Mickey

While I got a hot apple pie

Just one day after Pi Day!

Both desserts were delicious, and there were other great-looking options as well. If I’d been more hungry, I would have gotten the cinnamon roll, but it was roughly the size of my head and I’d just been eating. Okay, that’s an exaggeration. It’s pretty much the size of Theo’s head.

Covered in icing.

Maybe I’ll go just for breakfast.