“Roundup Rodeo BBQ” Opening March 23!

 by Beth Keating

News

DisneyBizJournal.com

January 25, 2023

 

Yeehaw, cowboys! We got some very exciting news from Disney today…. We now have an opening date for the long-awaited Roundup Rodeo BBQ at Disney’s Hollywood Studios.  Though you can’t make advanced dining reservations quite yet, Woody and Andy’s new restaurant in Toy Story Land will be opening March 23, 2023. 

 

Courtesy of the Disney Parks Blog

Over the past few weeks, the anticipation has been growing as we’ve watched Imagineers and construction crews add the finishing touches to the outside of the new eatery.  This western-themed, family-style restaurant will be serving up platters of barbecue, with house-smoked meats, lots of unique side dishes, and a selection of sweet desserts.  Disney does barbecue pretty well (Hello, Flame Tree in Animal Kingdom and Regal Eagle in EPCOT!), and we’re hoping this new locale lives up to the hype.

The ambiance promises to be a lot of fun for your little cowboys and cowgirls, too.  Andy has used his toys to create a rodeo arena where his own toys can play.  (And you will be the “honorary toys” coming for a visit in Andy’s backyard!)

 

Here’s the new menu, released today by Disney: 

 

Salads:

• Tomato Salad: Tomatoes, cucumbers, and pickled red onions tossed in a white balsamic vinaigrette and garnished with fresh dill (plant-based)
• Rex’s Romaine and Kale Salad: Romaine and kale mixed with green apples, pumpkin seeds, and dried cranberries tossed with green goddess dressing
• Watermelon Salad: Cubed watermelon garnished with freshly torn mint leaves (plant-based)

 

House-smoked meats, including: 

• Evil Dr. Smoked Ribs: Fall-off-the-bone pork ribs, slow-cooked for hours in the onsite smokehouse 
• Buttercup’s Beef Brisket: Hand-sliced beef brisket, smoked then slow-cooked to juicy perfection
• There’s a Sausage in My Boot: Spiced pork sausage fire-grilled over live oak to give it an added kick 
• BBQ Chicken – with Style! Chicken brined for 48 hours, rubbed with secret backyard BBQ spice and smoked to tender juiciness

 

Plant-based offerings (available upon request):

• Slow-smoked Cauliflower topped with sweet harissa drizzle and crunchy walnut gremolata 
• Oven-roasted “Bratwurst” that is tender and juicy, sliced to perfection
• Impossible “Rib Chop” seasoned with spices, then roasted and glazed with sweet BBQ sauce and skewered on a sugar cane “bone”

 

All entreés are served with an assortment of sweet, traditional, and spicy BBQ sauces.

 

Choose four of the following sides for the table:

• The Married Spuds: Loaded potato barrels drizzled with green goddess dressing, cheese sauce, and seasoned BBQ spices
• Force Field Fried Pickles: Jumbo pickle spears coated with a dill-flavored breading and fried to perfection
• Slinky Doooooooooog Mac & Cheese: Spiral pasta in a creamy house-made cheese sauce topped with crumbled cheddar crackers 
• Buckin’ Baked Beans: A traditional BBQ picnic favorite (plant-based)
• Cowpoke Corn on the Cob: Grilled and seasoned with a chili-lime spice blend, cilantro, cotija cheese, and lime juice
• Mean Old Potato Salad: Homestyle with red-skinned potatoes
• Veggie Slaw: Crunchy shredded veggie slaw that is a summertime favorite! (plant-based)
• Campfire-roasted Vegetables: A variety of roasted seasonal vegetables (plant-based)

 

Chuckwagon desserts (Choose from a selection for the table):

• Cupcake à la Forky: Forky is up to something sweet! A classic chocolate cake with a gooey chocolate ganache center topped with velvety graham cracker buttercream and a sugar cookie
• Lemon and Blueberry Cheesecake: An iconic creamy dessert that balances the tanginess of the cheesecake with the natural sweetness of blueberries and lemon
• Billy’s Chocolate Silk Pie: Layers of graham cracker crust and silky chocolate mousse topped with chantilly cream
• Goat’s Apple Pie: A picnic classic! Tart apples and warm pie spices balance perfectly with the creamy sweet filling under a crumble crust
• Gruff’s Peach-Strawberry Pie: With its silky sweet peaches and tartness of strawberries, this dessert is a fruit-centric delight! (plant-based)

 

Grown-up Craft Cocktails:

 (A selection of beer, hard cider, and wines by the glass are also available):

• Snake Eye Margarita: Inspired by a summertime BBQ featuring watermelon, smoke, and a bit of spice! 
• Rum Punch: Rum punch with vibrant flavors of passion fruit and pineapple finished with a smoky spiced garnish
• Chocolate with a Grown-up Twist: A blend of chocolate rum, horchata liqueur, cocoa, and flavors of toasted marshmallow
• Frozen Peanut Butter & Jelly: A fun frozen twist on the classic peanut butter & jelly featuring peanut butter whiskey 
• Whiskey Lemonade: A fresh take on a strawberry lemonade made with Tennessee whiskey and Italian bitter aperitif
• The Rodeo Mule: A classic “patio sipper,” this mule mixes vodka with fresh juices and ginger beer

 

Nonalcoholic offerings:

• Molly’s Frozen Iced Tea: A frosty concoction with iced tea and citrus flavors
• Frozen Cocoa: A frozen blend of cocoa and vanilla topped with miniature marshmallows
• Partysaurus Tex: Strawberry lemonade is even more fun when you garnish it with gummy worms!

 

Advance Dining Reservations should be available soon. Keep checking Disney Parks Blog to find out when you can start booking your family’s Roundup reservations.

 

_______________

 

Beth Keating is a theme parks, restaurant and entertainment reporter for DisneyBizJournal.

Buzz Lightyear is the Man!

Daily Dose of Disney with Ray Keating – Episode #35: Enthusiasm for Buzz Lightyear – Ray Keating notes why Buzz Lightyear is the man in Toy Story.

The “Daily Dose of Disney with Ray Keating” podcast serves up a Disney or Disney-related quote each day, with DisneyBizJournal’s Ray Keating offering brief, additional thoughts on how each dose ties in to life, career, business, entrepreneurship, creativity, storytelling, work, or just plain fun.

Toy Story 4: Big Bucks, Disappointing Movie

by Ray Keating

Review

DisneyBizJournal.com

June 23, 2019

DisneyBizJournal.com Movie Rating: 3 stars out of 5

DisneyBizJournal.com Box Office Rating:  $$$$ out of $$$$

Okay, I’m getting tired of coming out of a Toy Story movie feeling ... well ... kind of depressed. Toy Story 4 could have easily carried a subtitle like Woody’s Midlife Crisis or Woody’s Angst.

I exited the theater after watching Toy Story and Toy Story 2 feeling uplifted and joyous. That most certainly wasn’t the case with Toy Story 3 or, now, Toy Story 4.

Having said that, while Toy Story 3 was still a good movie, Toy Story 4 ranks as pretty good. Among the big plusses are several enjoyable new characters, namely, Forky (Tony Hale), Ducky (Keegan-Michael Key), Bunny (Jordan Peele), Giggle McDimples (Ally Maki), and perhaps best of all, Duke Caboom (Keanu Reeves).

At the same time, there are just too many problems with the film. For example, it’s so focused on Woody (Tom Hanks) that key characters whom we’ve come to love are relegated to after-thoughts, including Buzz Lightyear (Tim Allen) and Jessie (Joan Cusack), as well as Rex (Wallace Shawn), Hamm (John Ratzenberger), Slinky Dog (Blake Clark), and Potato Head (Don Rickles).

The additions of other toys simply don’t work all that well, especially the story arc involving Gabby Gabby (Christina Hendricks).

And then there’s the return of Bo Peep (Annie Potts). It was good to see one of the gang return to the fold, and her adventurous life added some verve to the movie. But her tale largely amounted to – at least based on the first three films – an anti-Toy-Story story.

In the end, the key problem with Toy Story 4 is Woody’s big choice, which undermines much of the point of the Toy Story franchise, and could be classified as selfish. It was very un-Woody. The scenes mixed in with the credits attempt to gloss over or justify Woody’s decision, but that effort comes up short.

The Box Office

But make no mistake, my take on Toy Story 4 definitely falls into the exception category. The rule is that critics and fans love this. Over at rottentomatoes.com, both critic and audience scores are off the charts – 98% fresh with critics and 95% with audiences.

BoxOfficeMojo.com had the early global box office haul at $167.4 million (as of Friday, June 21), and the movie was expected to pull in between $122 million and $125 million domestically for the entire opening weekend.

Yes, Toy Story 4 will succeed at the box office, but it disappoints when it comes to what Toy Story has long been about. Come on, Woody (or Pixar), you should’ve done better.

Ray Keating is the editor, publisher and economist for DisneyBizJournal.com, and author of the Pastor Stephen Grant novels. He can be contacted at  raykeating@keatingreports.com.

If you enjoyed this article, and since I am the author of the Pastor Stephen Grant novels and short stories, can I ask you to take at least one (preferably more) of the following steps?

1) A new Pastor Stephen Grant novel – DEEP ROUGH – is coming very soon. You can pre-order the Kindle edition, or the signed book.

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3) Buy one of the other Pastor Stephen Grant novels or short stories at Amazon.comor signed books at www.raykeatingonline.com. 

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Look for “Toy Story 4” To Beat Out “Incredibles 2” and “Frozen”

by Ray Keating

Analysis

DisneyBizJournal.com

June 9, 2019

All of the early buzz on Disney/Pixar’s Toy Story 4 isn’t just positive, but, well, over-the-top positive. Combine that with Disney cranking up the marketing effort between now and the June 21^stopening of the film, and we’re talking a monster box office take.

Many are looking for an opening weekend between $100 million and $150 million. By the way, the current record weekend opening for an animated film is another Disney/Pixar vehicle – Incredibles 2– which earned $182 million in June of last year.

Incredibles 2 wound up pulling in a total of $1.24 billion at the global box office. 

In terms of the Toy Story franchise, the first film, Toy Story, earned $373.6 million in 1995, followed by $497.4 million for Toy Story 2 (1999), and Toy Story 3’s  global box office gross of $1.07 billion in 2009.

Many people questioned why we needed a Toy Story 4. The early quick takes on the movie have told us that, in fact, we did need another entry in the Toy Story franchise. As a result, and given the enormous popularity of Woody, Buzz and their friends, I think we’re looking at a bigger weekend opening for Toy Story 4 than was the case for Incredibles 2, and an eventual box office gross that beats out the current record holder (at least in nominal dollars), Frozen (again, Disney), which took in $1.28 billion.

Look for Woody and Buzz to go out on top – and Disney winding up on top in animation no matter what.

Ray Keating is the editor, publisher and economist for DisneyBizJournal.com, and author of the Pastor Stephen Grant novels. He can be contacted at  raykeating@keatingreports.com.

If you enjoyed this article, and since I am the author of the Pastor Stephen Grant novels and short stories, can I ask you to take at least one (preferably more) of the following steps?

1) Please join the Pastor Stephen Grant novels and short stories email list, and get the upcoming short story, THE TRAITOR, for free! Sign up here.

2) Buy one of my Pastor Stephen Grant novels or short stories at Amazon.comor signed books at www.raykeatingonline.com. 

3) Become a member of the Pastor Stephen Grant Fellowship, and get all kinds of FREE stuff, including each new book in the Pastor Stephen grant series. Check out the levels and benefits here.