A new restaurant catering to guests at Walt Disney World in Florida requires that they leave their more casual clothes back at the hotel. And maybe their Mickey/Minnie ears.
Bourbon Steak, from award-winning chef Michael Mina, is scheduled to open this summer within the Walt Disney World Dolphin, a resort located near the Epcot and Hollywood Studios parks. The restaurant is described as an “ode to the traditional steakhouse,” with a focus on “perfect” steaks and “inventive” cocktails, according to its website.
It’s also categorized as one of Disney World’s “Signature Dining” experiences, meaning guests might want to bust out their best attire.
‘Please no swimwear’
“This restaurant is one of our Signature Dining experiences,” reads a message posted to the Bourbon Steak webpage. “Guests are expected to dress accordingly in attire that respects the restaurant’s sophisticated and upscale aesthetic. Clothing should be clean, neat and in good condition, free from offensive language and/or graphics. Please no swimwear.”
Having to dress up for dinner — while not exactly a common requirement at the restaurants in the Disney World parks — is not unheard of. Several fine-dining establishments at Disney World have similar dress codes to Bourbon Steak, especially those in the Signature Dining category.
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Victoria & Albert’s in the Grand Floridian, for instance, asks that guests dress in “semi-formal/formal attire that respects the restaurant’s elegant and opulent aesthetic.” The Yachtsman Steakhouse in the Disney Yacht Club Resort and the California Grill in Disney’s Contemporary Resort have pretty much the same requirements.
A panelist for planDisney has said as much about the park’s finer-dining restaurants in the past. In a 2023 post to the site, the panelist explained that most of Disney’s in-park restaurants aren’t as strict as those within an official Disney Resorts Collection hotel.
“As a general rule, if the restaurant is located in a Disney Resorts Collection hotel, then the general dress code is that a Guest’s clothing should ‘respect’ the restaurant’s more sophisticated and upscale aesthetic,” the panelist wrote. “This means that clothing should be neat, clean and in good condition and that no swimwear is allowed.”
A representative for Disney World was not immediately available to explain how strictly each dress code is enforced. While many of the guests in photos shared to TripAdvisor and Yelp appeared perfectly presentable, some were indeed wearing baseball caps, t-shirts and — though seemingly rare — a pair of Mickey/Minnie ears.
