Sci-Fi Dine-In Theater Restaurant

, a theme restaurant that opened two years before the Sci-Fi Dine-In. Its success led to an emphasis on theme during the design of the Sci-Fi Dine-In. As Disney planned new attractions to mark the 20th anniversary of Walt Disney World, it sought to replicate the success of the heavily themed 50's Prime Time Café, opened in 1989 to great success. The Sci-Fi Dine-In opened on April 20, 1991, on Commissary Lane across from Star Tours and next to the ABC Commissary. Within five weeks, the new restaurant was serving between 1,500 and 2,000 meals a day, comparable to the Prime Time Cafe. A year after opening, the Sci-Fi Dine-In had become the most popular restaurant in the park, serving more than 2,200 people per day at peak periods. ==Theme==

The Sci-Fi Dine-In is modeled after a 1950s drive-in theater. These booths were designed by Walt Disney Imagineering and are made of fiberglass with much chrome plating. The cars have whitewall tires, and speakers are mounted on poles next to each car. There are six picnic tables near the back of the room that are only used when the rest of the restaurant is full and there are guests who are willing to forgo the experience of sitting in the cars. All guests who make reservations are seated in the cars, although this was not the case the year the restaurant first opened. The restaurant's servers use point of sale mobile devices to relay orders to a printer in the kitchen, which in 1991 was a then-new technology in keeping with the science fiction theme. Some of the servers at the Sci-Fi Dine-In wear roller skates, acting as carhops, while others improvise characters such as a police officer ostensibly in search of people who have sneaked into the theater without paying. The dining room is dark and air-conditioned, and measures . The ceiling simulates a night sky replete with twinkling stars made from optical fibers. There is the facade of a snack counter at the back of the room, behind which is the kitchen. The upper walls of the dining room display a cyclorama of Southern California as seen over a fence. The film clips are taken from such films as The Blob, Frankenstein Meets the Space Monster, Teenagers from Outer Space, The Amazing Colossal Man, Plan 9 from Outer Space, Invasion of the Saucer Men, and Cat-Women of the Moon. The original Attack of the 50 Foot Woman trailer is also included. The clips are shown on a large projection screen. During Star Wars Weekends, a special breakfast is offered called the Star Wars Dine-In Galactic Breakfast, during which guests can interact with Star Wars characters and watch clips from the Star Wars films. Film props and vintage horror and science fiction movie posters can be found on the outside perimeter of the themed restaurant, including many props used in Disney's The Rocketeer, which premiered about three months after the restaurant opened. ==Food==

At the Sci-Fi Dine-In, lunch guests stay for an average of fifty minutes and dinner guests for an average of just longer than an hour, with lunch and dinner guests being served their food on average five and ten minutes after ordering respectively. The menu is the same all day, without a distinction between lunch and dinner. A full bar service is available, and there is also a limited wine selection. Food selection at the restaurant comes from the traditional cuisine of the United States. Popcorn used to be served as a free ''hors d'oeuvre. Other food items include milkshakes, hot fudge sundaes, seafood salad, turkey sloppy joes, fried pickles, St. Louis-style barbecue ribs, beef-and-blue-cheese salads, sautéed shrimp with farfalle, French fries, cucumber salads, Buffalo wings, Boca Burgers, Tofutti, and steaks. Drinks include souvenir phosphorescent ice cubes. The cookbook Delicious Disney Just for Kids'' contains a recipe for the BLT soup served at the Sci-Fi Dine-In. Items in the restaurant's menu used to have themed names, such as "The Galactic Grill" (triple-decker grilled cheese sandwich), "Beast from 1,000 Islands" (Reuben sandwich), A popcorn bisque was once on the menu, but it was removed due to poor reception. ==Imitation==

Drive-in Cafe in Thailand, and Universal Orlando's Bayliner Diner (pictured). In 2003, EGV Entertainment, a movie theater operator in Thailand, opened the EGV Drive-in Cafe in Bangkok, explicitly modeling the restaurant after the Sci-Fi Dine-In. Wichai Poolwaraluk, the company's executive president and chief executive officer, visited the Sci-Fi Dine-In in 2000, and was inspired to open a similar restaurant. He said that, while he was eating at the Sci-Fi Dine-In, the other guests seemed more interested in their food than in the film clips on the screen, and he therefore considered the Sci-Fi Dine-In more of a restaurant than a theater, with the film reel simply being a gimmick. Appealing to EGV's identity as a movie theater operator, Poolwaraluk said that the EGV Drive-in Cafe "can probably do a better job blending the cinema and the food together and also concentrate on both of them". In 2014, NBCUniversal opened Universal Orlando's first prime-value hotel, Universal's Cabana Bay Beach Resort, which houses the Bayliner Diner, a restaurant that borrows its premise from the Sci-Fi Dine-In. Both restaurants play old film footage on a loop. ==Reception==

The Sci-Fi Dine-In has received mixed reviews. Jack Hayes of ''Nation's Restaurant News calls the Sci-Fi Dine-In "wacky" and "on the cutting edge of sheer dining fun". In USA Today's list of the sixteen best restaurants in American amusement parks, the Sci-Fi Dine-In ranks fifteenth. Samuel Muston of The Independent writes that the Sci-Fi Dine-In is "memorable in the best way". In the Evansville Courier & Press'', Pete DiPrimio writes that the Sci-Fi Dine-In ranks among the most unusual of the restaurants at Disney's Hollywood Studios. In The Unofficial Guide to Walt Disney World 2015, Bob Sehlinger and Len Testa call the Sci-Fi Dine-In the most entertaining restaurant in Walt Disney World, writing that "everyone gets a kick out of this unusual dining room". Multiple reviewers have called the Sci-Fi Dine-In more notable for being an attraction than a food destination. One reviewer from The Guardian compares the Sci-Fi Dine-In to Epcot's Coral Reef Restaurant, writing that both restaurants "are great settings" where "eating is awful". Sehlinger and Testa consider the prices too high, and the food too simple, although they praise the Reuben sandwich and the ribs. Ed Bumgardner of the Winston-Salem Journal shared this opinion, specifically singling out the restaurant's roast beef sandwich as a ripoff, despite calling it delicious. Peggy Katalinich of the Tampa Bay Times and author Corey Sandler both write that that, although the food is mediocre, the food quality is not the main focus for guests. Katalinich also states that the prices are low, particularly for sandwiches. Douglas Ingersoll writes positively of the milkshakes in Plan Your Walt Disney World Vacation in No Time, as does a reviewer for the United Kingdom's The Sentinel. Ingersoll also writes that the sandwiches and burgers are better than at the fast food restaurants in the park. Paul Schultz of the Daily News writes, "Anyone who is a fan of trashy sci-fi movies of the 1950s should check [the Sci-Fi Dine-In] out". In his book Sci-Fi Movie Freak, Robert Ring calls the Sci-Fi Dine-In film clips "hokey", while David Steele of The Rotarian calls them "classically awful", and Rick Ramseyer of Restaurant Business Magazine calls them "campy". ==See also==