Sunday Brunch: Main
Street Bakery-A Business
11 August 2013
by Reuben Gutierrez
Last week, we told the tale of the renewed Main
Street Bakery, namely how the Disney Imagineers managed to fit the
park's newest corporate partner into a street set nearly a century
before its time. This week, we'll examine whether this renewed
'bakery' deserves such a title. In order to do this, we'll need a
more practical exploration of the Bakery as it stands today. In
Disney's official press release announcing the addition of Starbucks
coffee to the Main Street Bakery's menu, the clever wording implies
that the beloved Main Street Bakery would not disappear, with many
'bakery favorites' returning alongside popular food items from
Starbucks.
Among these favorites were the chocolate croissant
(also found throughout the resort) and the
Main Street Bakery's cinnamon roll, exclusive to the popular
eatery. Giant, fluffy, and smothered in honey smear and a flat
icing, the Main Street Bakery Cinnamon roll essentially served as a
rite of passage for any Disney foodie. When the bakery closed for
its refurbishment into Starbucks, both the popular cinnamon roll and
the chocolate croissant saw relocation to Gaston's Tavern in New
Fantasyland. Most fans speculated this temporary solution would be
remedied once Starbucks re-opened. Their favorites would return,
right? After all, on opening week, a hand out menu of the renewed
bakery listed all the fabulous Starbucks beverages, while the the
other side listed some sandwiches, and a note reminding guests to
check out the pastries in the bakery case. Although individual items
were not listed, two items were pictured: the chocolate croissant
and the cinnamon roll.

Below is a picture of the display case on opening
weekend. As you can see, the top two rows feature a variety of the
typical Starbucks pastries like the lemon loaf, the cake pops, and
assorted muffins. The bottom two rows contain brownies, cookies, and
cupcakes. These three items are the only survivors from the original
Main Street Bakery, but the cupcakes are not the same (more on that
later). So where are the chocolate croissants and cinnamon rolls?
Still at Gaston's. As far as I know, the powers that be have no
plans to move them back to Main Street Bakery. If that's not false
advertising, then you can call me a monkey's uncle.

I have been to the Main Street Bakery countless
times since then, with the offerings remaining the same, only with
the addition of more Starbucks pastries. Online research reveals
other writers concluding that even the brownies came from Starbucks.
Thus, the only bakery favorites to truly return are the cookies and
the cupcake (supposedly).
This brings us to a review of the peanut butter
cupcake, which was one of the items I tried when I did the cast
preview for the bakery. It tasted okay, after all, this is just a
chocolate cupcake featuring peanut butter and chocolate frosting on
top, with peanut butter and chocolate garnishes. It looked very
pretty, but overall, it seemed only okay. This did not taste like
the moist and lusciously rich peanut butter cupcake I had last year
at the Main Street Bakery. The cupcake portion was a bit dry, and
the entire dessert was very cold, meaning it had been sitting in
refrigeration for a long time. This tells me one of two things:
either they made it very early that morning, or some other bakery
made it days ago. My gut feeling sadly pointed to the latter
scenario.
Regardless who made what and where (and pointedly,
when), the abundance of breads, muffins, cupcakes, cookies, and
other pastries help this particular shop fit the expected definition
of a bakery. Disney still can appropriately call this the Main
Street Bakery, but while it holds the name, it does not truly honor
its legacy. When Walt Disney World opened in 1971, chefs and cooks
made most of the park's food in one central location; sometime in
the 1980s, they eventually spread out to kitchens at nearly all food
locations throughout the park. Since then, the Main Street Bakery
had been baking fresh goods right on the premises, a practice
commonly advertised not just on Main Street, but in bakeries and
diners and restaurants all over the country. In early 2013, Main
Street Bakery would bake its last cinnamon roll, then serve its last
pastry. The cooks dispersed to other kitchens throughout the park
(luckily, they still make the cinnamon rolls today for Gaston's
Tavern), the kitchen dismantled, and a new cast and pre-made ready
to eat pastries delivered in its place. In all fairness, the cookies
still get baked fresh, as do the hot foods the 'bakery' serves, but
still that's a small cry from the baked bounties this small-town
bakery used to make. In my opinion, the 'Main Street Bakery' is a
misnomer; the shop in its place does not deserve such a title.

Mind you, I don't intend to say that Starbucks is
bad or that we should shun the new bakery. Bringing in Starbucks
solved a lot of problems, mainly in providing a trusted, quality
coffee brand to guests. I love their shaken iced teas and recently
gained a liking for their refreshers, especially while exploring the
Magic Kingdom on a sunny day. Also, the redesign more than doubled
the number of registers and fully expanded the queue throughout the
length of the original bakery space (much like the
Board Walk Bakery's remodel), two actions that increased both
efficiency and guest volume, which helped serve more guests and
serve them quickly. Though the bakery is still very busy, wait time
for beverages, breakfasts, and snacks has been significantly
reduced, allowing guests more time to eat, drink, and play.


'Genteel tearoom' becomes a cold counter
Guests were promised a return of 'bakery favorites,'
but when it came down to it, the only 'favorites' to return were the
same cookies you find everywhere else in the Disney World. The real
and only star of the Main Street Bakery is Starbucks. The majority
of guests patron the Main Street Bakery for the Starbucks coffee,
not for the treats promised by its name. Again, while essentially
corporate sponsorship is nothing new to Main Street (another topic
for next time), this business partnership expunged the identity of
the bakery. Progress comes with a price. Gone is the indoor seating
in which to enjoy these treats. Gone is the quaint atmosphere of a
small town bakery and 'genteel tearoom.' And probably the biggest
price to pay: gone are all but one of the original, fresh-baked,
made-with-love bakery treats.