“Why Would I Eat There?” Disney World Sign Sparks Restaurant Boycott Calls
Every so often, something pops up at Walt Disney World that makes the whole fan community stop scrolling at once. This week it was a dessert sign.
A guest staying at Disney’s Coronado Springs Resort walked past Rix Sports Bar, glanced at a promotional display, and noticed the food in the pictures looked strange. Not bad lighting, strange. Genuinely wrong.
They snapped a photo and posted it to the Walt Disney World subreddit. The thread took off from there.
The Disney Sign In Question
Rix Sports Bar sits near the resort’s quick-service spot and the convention center. The convention center is closed for refurbishment right now, but Rix is still open and serving.
The display advertises a seasonal strawberry shortcake, along with fried Oreos and a brownie à la mode. There is a burger featured on the other side.
The strawberry shortcake is where things fall apart. The whipped cream on top has a lumpy, grainy texture with little green bits scattered across it. Fans immediately started guessing what they were looking at.
Mashed potatoes was the most popular answer. Someone else said cottage cheese. One person joked about shortcake topped with scrambled egg and parsley. A few landed on dill, which somehow became a running gag in the replies.
The burger did not fare much better. Guests pointed out that the cheese drip is oddly symmetrical, and one sharp-eyed commenter noticed the cheese slice appears to be dripping from all four corners on the same side, which is not how cheese works. Others said the bun’s texture looked like it borrowed the pattern from the copper mug sitting next to it.
The Small Details Disney Fans Caught
The food was the obvious tell, but people kept finding more.
The original poster noted that the mule on the sign shows whole blackberries as a garnish, even though the actual drink is made with blackberry syrup.
Then someone spotted the bigger problem. The Disney Dining Plan logos printed on the sign are wrong. A few fans who work in marketing said that is the kind of thing a brand notices fast, and predicted the sign would quietly disappear soon.
Another commenter pointed out the little dashes around the word “shortcake” and said those are a dead giveaway that the whole poster was generated, not just the photos.
Rix Is Not Run By Disney
This part came up fast in the thread, and it is worth knowing.
Rix Sports Bar is operated by a third party, not Disney. Fans identified the parent company as Palmas Restaurant Group, and pointed out that the same operator is connected to El Mercado, Maya Grill, and dining over in the Mexico Pavilion.
Not everyone thought that let Disney off the hook. Several people argued that operators on Disney property play by Disney’s rules, so if there is no rule about this, there should be. Others brought up a similar situation at Disneyland, where AI art was reportedly found in a new Haunted Mansion shop.
Why People Are So Annoyed
Reading through the thread, the frustration was not really about technology. It was about effort.
The most repeated point went something like this. If a restaurant will not photograph its own food, why should anyone assume the kitchen is trying any harder than the marketing team is? A phone picture of the actual dessert would have looked better. It also would have been free.
Plenty of fans said they are crossing Rix off their trip list. A few said they are leaving reviews explaining exactly why. One person tracked down the operator’s publicly listed contact info and said they already sent a message.
For a resort that sells itself on details, a lumpy fake dessert on the wall landed harder than anyone at Rix probably expected.
