Disney Foodie Spotlight: The Museum Cafe @WDFMuseum

We love the Walt Disney Family Museum. For many, many, many reasons. I’ve written before about the incredible interactive exhibits, the innovative way the museum tells Walt’s story, and my favorite – Walt’s Disneyland. You can even see movies, participate in discussions and special exhibitions, and tons more (and read all about it on our blog). But after spending time walking through the museum or seeing a movie, you might want a bite to eat, and even though there are other places close by, why not just walk over to The Museum Cafe and park yourself down. Better yet, get your stuff to go and sit down on the grass outside.

Location: Walt Disney Family Museum @ the Presidio in San Francisco, CA
Type: Quick service
Specialty: Walt’s Chili
Cost: $7 to $12
Craig’s Favorite: Walt’s Chili…and the sweets

To go with The Art of Pinocchio special exhibition, The Museum Cafe had lots of great homages to the movie including our friend Jiminy Cricket

The Museum Cafe fits perfectly in the atmosphere of the WDFM. The food is mostly “to go” type of food – food you can take with you. They offer sandwiches, salads, soup and sweets – the four “S”‘s. Their menu clearly delineates which options are gluten-free, vegan, and contains nuts and there is a nice variety to choose from. The menu changes regularly. When we went last year, different options were available including a sandwich on muffuletta and a s’more dessert (heavenly) which were absent this time. Not to fear, there were lots of new goodies to choose from including an Italian meatball sandwich, chicken salad on wild greens, and even a smokey pulled pork sandwich in a bun.

Walt's Chili served in honor of the man and the mouse at The Museum Cafe in WDFM — Walt’s Chili served in honor of the man and the mouse at The Museum Cafe in WDFM

This time around we tried Walt’s Chili (gluten free by the way if you don’t count the Mickey Mouse bread ears set on the side of the plate). It was hearty, filling, and with a very nice helping of chili with creme fraiche, scallions, and cheddar cheese on top. Both my daughter and I enjoyed it and thought it was a good, solid bowl of chili. We had a Bundaberg root beer which my daughter enjoyed but I thought was a tad too sweet. They have tons more to select from for drinks including wine, tea, soda, water, and milk. Last time we each had a sandwich and shared the dessert. My sandwich was unremarkable, but we both loved her muffuletta ham and cheese. And the s’mores dessert was just delicious.

Our treats from last time including that delicious s'mores dessert I keep mentioning — Our treats from last time including that delicious s’mores dessert I keep mentioning. Look at that mountain of marshmallow all toasty! Emma’s muffulatta sandwich rests in the background and some scrumptious chocolate milk awaits

The Museum Cafe gets its desserts from local favorite Tout Sweet (we happened to go to both places on the same day and they had exactly the same selection). They are good. Personally, I love the macarons made with local ingredients. In their dark chocolate macaron, they use Guittard chocolate, a local delicacy. But at The Museum Cafe, they have a great selection of desserts including tarts, brownies, cookies, and cakes. It is such a cute, peaceful place to eat, it makes for a perfect wind-up to a day at the museum.