Sunday Brunch: Jolly Holiday Bakery Cafe

3 March 2013

Author's Note: I guess I subconsciously planned today's article. Ironically, today's Sunday Brunch is an unexpected fitting tribute to the Disney's Broadway Production of Mary Poppins, which performs its last performance tonight after a terrific seven year run. 'Au Revoir, Mary Poppins.'

My expectations at the Jolly Holiday Bakery Cafe at the end of Disneyland's Main Street were set pretty high since during Mary Poppin's jolly holiday, she got some free pastries and toasty beverages from a fleet of penguin waiters. While that is not quite the type of service guests receive at the new Disneyland Main Street bakery cafe, guests are served a delicious array of cafe salads, soups, sandwiches, and of course pastries. The cafe is also decorated with motifs from the beloved film.

While the penguin waiters are not present in person,
They decorate the bakery such as this beautiful window

Mary Poppins weathervane, quite fitting for the character and Disneyland

With a dozen menu items and dozens more pastries, the Jolly Holiday Bakery Cafe has a distinctly classic American cafe menu, despite its inspiration from a British story. While the theme of the Cafe is somewhat questionable in Main St. USA, the American menu fits the time period of turn of the century America: Turkey sandwiches, Waldorf Salad inspired sandwiches, tomato soup, and grilled cheese (called 'toasted cheese' here) sandwiches with house made potato chips. My last night in Disneyland, dining companion Hidden Mickey Alex and I sampled the Chicken Waldorf on Brioche sandwich and the Jolly Holiday Combo (toasted cheese sandwich and tomato basil soup).

The toasted cheese sandwich was a Grilled Cheese sandwich conveniently paired with tomato soup, an American classic. I liked that the sandwich was precut into easy to tear off sticks to dip into the tomato soup, an incredibly savory perfectly seasoned, thick and tomato rich soup. The Chicken Waldorf on Brioche sandwich is inspired by the classic Waldorf Salad developed at the famous Waldorf Hotel in New York City in the 1890s, a similar time period to the Mary Poppins story. The sandwich version uses a type of chicken salad with dried cranberries, celery, lettuce, apples, and walnuts with a mayonnaise based dressing. Both sandwiches were excellent and satisfying with the Waldorf being most refreshing.

Pre-sliced Toasted Cheese sandwich, perfect for dipping!

The sandwiches were served on the same newspaper decorated waxy paper
like at the Yorkshire Fish Shop in Epcot.

Our first visit to the Jolly Holiday Bakery Cafe, we made sure to explore the bakery part of the menu and sample some of their pastries. Alex enjoyed a Matterhorn Macaroon, a popular treat from the former Blue Ribbon Bakery on Main Street. The dessert is a stack of coconut macaroons dipped in white chocolate and sprinkled with more coconut. My sister and I tried the specialty cupcake available for the True Love Week of Disneyland's Limited Time Magic. The cupcake was a chocolate cupcake with a raspberry mousse filling topped with a dark chocolate mousse and dipped in chocolate ganache. The raspberry mousse filling was minimal, but still good. Disneyland's bakery products certainly satisfied our sweet teeth while also surprising us with their creativity.

Check out all the chocolate mousse!

While you dine on its pastry counterpart,
there are perfect views of the Matterhorn from the Bakery

As mentioned in last week's first Disneyland food review of the Bengal Barbecue, the Walt-promised ever changing park found a way to use a somewhat lost and forgotten space and transform it into a profitable and popular new dining venue that fits in with the rest of the park as if it's been there for years. The space in which the Jolly Holiday Bakery Cafe resides in today started as the Plaza Pavillion, a restaurant sponsored by Stouffer's. The restaurant sadly closed its doors in 1997 and turned into an Annual Passholder's sales center and for over a decade, the fantastic building and location was wasted on a service that could easily be located elsewhere in the Disneyland resort. Finally in 2012, Disneyland announced it was moving the Blue Ribbon Bakery to the Plaza Pavillion and re-imagining it as the Jolly Holiday Bakery Cafe we know today and will surely be loved for many years to come.

A Mary Poppins tree, decorated with
lyrics and images from the film's beloved songs

At one point in Disneyland history, Miss Poppin's Penguins did serve guests.
Here's to hoping that day will return soon!

While penguin waiters do not serve you free pastries in a sidewalk chalk drawing world, the Jolly Holiday Bakery Cafe manages to delight guests with its delicious treats and its Mary Poppins inspired theme. I find it delightful that Disneyland not only managed to bring new life to a forgotten space, but made it so with beloved characters already existing in their repertoire. While the magical British nanny's placement in a land so wholeheartedly American at a Cafe with such American menu offerings is rather questionable, one mustn't forget, she is on a jolly holiday after all.