Sunday Brunch Goes Hollywood by Guest Writer Brent Dodge

January 13, 2013

While Disney food is amazing, the storylines that often go hand in hand with the food enhance the meal to a brand new level. Today I'd like to share a story about my favorite restaurant in Disney's Hollywood Studios.

Arriving in Hollywood from New York, a hopeful Italian actress made her way to a Hollywood audition room. After putting everything she had into her audition she came to a horrible truth: she just wasn't cut out for acting. This is a Disney story though, so naturally, she didn't give up on her dream. She took a small part in a film as an extra. Not exactly the glamorous life she had in mind while taking the train from New York to Hollywood, but fate had something in mind for her.

Devastated from not being the star of the film, our young hopeful would often find herself eating by herself in order to hide her tears. Her meal? Spaghetti, lasagna, pizza; practically anything she had learned to cook from her Italian mother and grandmother before she moved from New York. One day another actor from the set stumbled across her sanctuary and got a whiff of her homemade Italian meal. After trying a bit of this Heavenly meal, he begged her to make him lunch the following day. She agreed, but, for a price.

The next day the actor showed up and he bought his meal. When others caught wind of the homemade Italian food that became the talk of the set, the actress decided she needed to make larger amounts of food. Eventually, the studio owner learned about the famous Italian meals being served on his backlot and he came up with a resolution that would make everyone happy. He built a restaurant, hired a wait and kitchen staff, and asked for the aspiring New Yorker to run the restaurant.

Realizing that the actor's life wasn't for her, she agreed and would go on to run the restaurant that made all of Hollywood's stars extremely happy (and rather full). She naturally named it after herself: Mama Melrose.