This is the third entry in a series posted by Foxxfur from Passport2Dreams on the sad state of coffee at Walt Disney World. Although the series is over four years old, her writing still holds merit.
"...and the bean death held sway over all!"OK, so now we start getting into more alien territory for our intrepid authorette: the Studios and Animal Kingdom, places I don't generally care for and don't often visit. But sacrifices must be made after all, and since this is for the public record, I went and crawled all around those parks this week so I would at least appear to know what I'm talking about. I feared MGM (Sorry... The STUDIOS) would be yet another Magic Kingdom, and while it's true that the coffees they have are more basic, there's nearly as many places to get the good stuff and, best of all, the park's relatively small size means that getting to them is pretty simple. So here we go on
Quest Three: That Park Thingie That Used to be MGM-Studios With the Star Wars and the Hat
The good news is very good here, which is that there's at least one very good place to get 100% real coffee and two pretty good places. The best place is a bit out of a way, but the most important coffee addicts no that no distance is too great if real coffee is on the line. It's The Writer's Stop and while it may be over by the New York Street it's also just a hop, skip, and a jump from that godawful but at least fairly central hat, if that helps the situation at all. The location has a nice cafe atmosphere and is hardly busy, since it appears to be a store from the outside. There's a bean grinder, an espresso machine and a nice selection of coffee-shop type sweets, and it's your best choice at WDW we've covered so far if you want a good coffee shop type experience.
There's two other coffee places that bear mentioning. Funnily enough, of the three I'm talking about here only one is actually on the Studios guidemap... it's Starring Rolls Cafe, which is kind of a situation similar to Kringla Bakery at EPCOT, only it closes so early every day it's totally useless for coffee crazed insomniacs like me. It may be hosted by Nestle, creator of the abomination NesCafe, but don't be fooled - inside they have real coffee machines with real brew baskets and everything. The stuff is I'm sure NesCafe or some similar Nestle variant, but it is telling that in the cafes that Nestle sponsors even they won't stoop to selling that NesCafe concentrate sludge stuff Disney has no problem using to make their coffee. Will crimes against humanity never cease??!!
Finally, on the most positive note yet, is the most handy coffee spot in the park if you happen to be in the right area: once you enter the MGM turnstiles make an immediate right and you'll see a little stand next to Oscar's Gas Station and, yes, it's serving real coffee with real ground beans and stuff. Funnily enough you can also buy NesCafe here - in the form of an iced slush drink.
One funny thing about the Disney parks is that it's easier to get a decent espresso - heck, even Magic Kingdom has it at Sleepy Hollow - than light brewed North American style coffee. If you find yourself at an espresso machine and want US type coffee, do what the rest of the world does: add hot water to espresso. It's called Cafe Americano and it's quite good!
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