Hollywood & Vine is a table-service buffet at Walt Disney World’s Hollywood Studios. Residing in Echo Lake, the restaurant houses characters from Disney Junior at breakfast and Minnie’s Seasonal Dining at lunch and dinner. Serving an assortment of American cuisine, dining here counts as 1 table-service credit on the Disney Dining Plan and there is an Annual Pass discount offered for those paying out of pocket. In this post, we’ll review Hollywood & Vine’s lunch and dinner atmosphere, cuisine and value.

I have a few blind spots when it comes to Disney Parks, most of which come from not having kids of my own. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll embarrass myself and Melissa plenty by crawling through a playground or sitting through a show that’s clearly not geared to my age range. I usually make the joke about doing things in the name of research, but those are actually true! The real blind spot is when kid experiences cost money. Character dining buffets definitely fit that bill.

Loyal readers know that eating is not a problem for me! We’ve dined at the majority of Walt Disney World table-service restaurants and try to get to new ones every time we’re in Florida. The problem is that we don’t like to spend money on bad food and, well, character dining buffets don’t have the best reputation. Along with that, they’re usually quite expensive!

But is that poor reputation warranted? That question, and running out of new restaurants to try, led us to Hollywood & Vine for dinner. While not the most popular character dining spot, Disney Tourist Blog had sung the restaurant’s praises as well as a few other outlets so we wanted to try it for ourselves!

The lunch and dinner option is called Minnie’s Seasonal Dining which amounts to characters in different costumes. From what I can tell, the characters generally (Halloween is a little different) include members of the Fab Five and Minnie is a guarantee. We were there during Minnie’s Silverscreen Dine. The menus stay largely the same during the different seasons but the costumes change. That’s a fun and festive way to do character dining at a restaurant without much of a theme.

To be fair, a decent amount of character dining restaurants have less of a theme than Hollywood & Vine. I’m looking at you Chef Mickey’s! This particular restaurant is named after a famous intersection in Hollywood and embraces some of the glitz and glamour of that. There’s a wall with some photos of Hollywood and the characters during our season were all dressed to the nines.

As for what the actual restaurant looks like, it has more of a diner aesthetic. That shouldn’t be a surprise with 50’s Prime Time Café being next door. Hollywood & Vine is far from the best looking restaurant but it fits the ‘diner in Hollywood’ vibe well enough. The place does feel similar to the land it is in, matching Echo Lake’s California Crazy architecture and color.

Like most character dining restaurants, there was a photo op before guests are seated. This one didn’t involve any actual characters as they all came to the table.

Minnie looked great in her pink dress, as she went around to meet guests. Character meets were all personal. Some are more brief than others but that’s probably more a product of two adults not being the target audience for the restaurant than anything else. Also, character meets can be kind of awkward so I don’t mind a shorter visit. On that night, we met Minnie, Mickey, Goofy and Pluto. They were all funny and playful! Hollywood & Vine is smaller than some other character dining spots so it might lead to slightly longer interactions? I’m guessing on that one and don’t have any data to prove it. Nevertheless, this is a great way to see some of the Disney’s main characters in festive outfits.

As for the food, here’s a look at the menu. Not everything offered at the buffet is on the menu but most of it is. We’ll touch on the value of the restaurant in a minute but the cost is $63, which includes fountain drinks, coffee or tea. If you’re on the Disney Dining Plan, the restaurant counts as 1 credit and you can add a drink with alcohol in it on top of everything else. Excuse my plates of food that were not beautifully assembled. Unless you call piling too much food onto a plate beautiful!

Disney World buffets seem to be best if they’re themed to a specific type of cuisine like Boma or Biergarten are. I’ve been leery of any ‘American’ buffet at WDW because they seem to try to do too many things. I might have to throw that opinion out the window now because Hollywood & Vine was pretty good! I’m not going to heap tons of praise on it, saying it’s the best restaurant in Disney World. That would be far from the truth. But it might be the best character dining buffet, in terms of food, at WDW.

There was nothing we tried that was bad. A few of the standouts included the Sour Cream & Chives Whipped Potatoes and the carving stations. The former was incredibly creamy and full of flavor. It’s hard to screw up mashed potatoes but these were elevated above most. As for the carving station, it included Turkey and Strip Loin. Both were cooked far better than expected and had good flavor. Everything was surprisingly fresh!

Another spot Hollywood & Vine unexpectedly excelled was with seafood. Peel & Eat Shrimp isn’t exactly hard to prepare but I was impressed by the quality of those. One of my favorite options was the Salmon. This had a Miso Wasabi that wasn’t overly spicy served with it. The fish itself was a thick cut of salmon and cooked wonderfully while the topping added a little heat and sweetness. I should mention a vegetable as a standout so I’ll pick the Caramelized Brussels Sprouts. They were delicious with a sweetness to match the bitterness.

Of course, you can always count on the dessert table for a few winners and that was especially true at Hollywood & Vine. Everyone loves a soft serve machine, which the buffet includes. More decadent options included a cheesecake and chocolate cake. There were six or seven dessert options and I think they rotate more routinely than the rest of the buffet options.

I came away impressed by Hollywood & Vine’s offerings. We went here a few days after Biergarten (yes, I gained some weight on that trip) and they ended up pretty even in my mind in terms of food. That’s a giant win for a character dining buffet.

That brings us to Hollywood & Vine’s value. The restaurant ends up being one of the cheaper character dining options. Now, it’s still a lot! $63 for adults and $40 for kids really adds up. But relative to the other options, Hollywood & Vine has better food, classic characters and is the same price. If you’re on the Dining Plan, Hollywood & Vine would be a great option if you want to do the Fantasmic Dining Package. That’s still only 1 credit and would have a value of around $100!

Now, I don’t want to oversell this. If you’re just looking for good food then there’s probably 30 better table-service restaurants at WDW. But if you’re looking for a character dining spot and don’t want to try to choke down whatever Chef Mickey’s is serving then Hollywood & Vine is a really strong option. I’d go back in the right circumstance and that’s more than I can say for most character dining buffets!

Overall Rating – 8/10

Have you eaten at Hollywood & Vine? Let us know your thoughts or any questions you might have in the comments below. Planning a trip to Walt Disney World? Check out our Disney World Trip Planning Guide to help you out. Looking for discount tickets? Check out this site! If you enjoy what you are reading here on Wandering in Disney please share this post with your friends, as well as like our social media pages. You can also subscribe to the blog via WordPress or email. All of those links are on the right side of this page. Thank you for reading, we really appreciate it!