Rainforest Cafe
The Rainforest Cafe tries very, very hard to please and the effort almost always pays off. The Rainforest Cafe want to be the theme restaurant that cares. Have a burger, buy some animal stuff, save an acre of rainforest. The restaurant is kind of like the Swiss Family Robinson Treehouse meets Hard Rock Cafe. The bar area is called the Magic Mushroom.
Our $5 Mai Tai came in a square-cornered glass, topped with pineapple. The drink was a pinkish color, even throughout. It had a sweet taste, with rum in good proportion. Obviously coming from a Mai Tai mix, the taste not quite tasting "natural" (ironically, given the theme of the restaurant).
The Magic Mushroom bar sits under a 70 foot mushroom. The atmosphere consists of lush greenery (almost all fake), ropes leading up to an upstairs eating area, lots of fountains, and dripping water. The noise level was high due to ambient jungle sounds (including simulated thunderstorm!) and the occasional playing of contemporary music. A stairway was "carved" into a rock face, leading to the upstairs restaurant area which features a similar bar. The chairs of the bar were shaped like the legs of various animals (zebras, frogs, tigers) and I liked the chairs (though my wife didn't). Several large aquariums filled with fish are interspersed throughout the restaurant. The bar also serves smoothies.
The attractive bar staff was friendly and lively, dressed in army green shorts and khaki shorts. One negative for the Rainforest Cafe is a strange, incomprehensible reservation system during peak hours when the lines are very, very long. We returned a few hours later and just walked up to the bar.
We were impressed by the Rainforest Cafe. But the real impression hit us when we visited the restrooms. Instead of the generic rest room that often sits inside a fancifully decorated restaurant, the Rainforest Cafe has details which continue throughout. Our first hint of this came when we saw the two signs on the rest room doors: Tarzan and Jane. Inside, green tiles and paint contrasted tastefully with murals of animals. Strange as it may seem, the bathrooms pushed the Rainforest Cafe to the top.
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Date Visited: July 21, 1998
Reviewed by: Kevin Crossman and Julie Crossman