According to the official Disneyland Resort website, the Blue Bayou restaurant will be closing for a refurbishment starting on April 21, 2022.
With the work being done on the Pirates of the Caribbean attraction, this isn’t entirely unexpected. Blue Bayou sits inside the attraction, and the construction walls can be seen inside the restaurant, blocking the diners’ views of the attraction.
What isn’t known is what exactly the refurbishment will entail. Will it just be to freshen it up, or will there be major changes? Disney hasn’t given an indication either way.
Pirates of the Caribbean and Blue Bayou were among the last projects Walt Disney personally oversaw, and both opened on March 18, 1967, shortly after he passed away.
Here’s a look at the restaurant from the year it opened:
Original plans for the restaurant were to feature a pirate-themed stage show as part of the experience, but that was nixed before the restaurant opened.
The opening menu featured dishes that would be similar to a fine dining restaurant in New Orleans, such as Seafood Creole (“King crab meat, Bayou shrimps and whitefish in a Cajun sauce of green peppers, tomatoes and celery on rice pilaf”) for $3.25, and Grenadin de Boeuf Bourguignonne (“Thin slices of beef tenderloin with mushrooms and pearl in a bourguignnone sauce”) for $4. For dessert, may we recommend the Praline Parfait for 75 cents?
Here is a kid’s menu from 1967, with similar prices:
The menu back then also featured a Monte Cristo sandwich, which can still be found on the menu today. The main difference is back then it was a reported $2.25, and today it’s $29 on the lunch menu.
One other major difference at the restaurant is that when it reopened last year after the pandemic closure, it added Louisiana-inspired alcoholic drinks to the menu. Blue Bayou never served alcohol before this.
Pirates of the Caribbean closed for refurbishment March 14, 2022, and is expected to reopen early Summer 2022. No date was listed for Blue Bayou’s return, but it’ll probably be around the same time.
We know reservations for Blue Bayou have been difficult to get, so as soon as we hear of an exact date, we’ll let you know.