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.
