The Ghirardelli Soda Fountain and Chocolate shop soft opens

[In the Parks]

The Ghirardelli Soda Fountain and Chocolate shop soft opened today and the guests showed up in droves ready to enjoy yummy goodness.

As guests enter, they are each given a delicious sample square of Ghirardelli chocolate then invited to place their order at any one of the 6 registers.

When you are done placing your order, you then head to one of the 6 soda Fountains for the order to be fulfilled. We were told that they are trying to take orders and fulfill them within 4 minutes. Let's wish them luck with that goal.

Display tables in the center of the room






Waffle cone batter


plus chocolate equals...


WAFFLE CUPS!!!

The interior is obviously fresh and new and doesn't even remotely resemble the old tortilla factory.

Behind the soda fountain counter is a dimensional mural. We were told that it is supposed to be animated, but that it was not operational at the time of the soft opening.

There is no indoor seating and the only seating today was outside.

And that is it! Everything looks great, smells better and tastes divine! The official opening date is supposed to be June 7th, but it is safe to assume that they will be open until then.

What do you think folks? Hungry yet?!

[dontbecheekin]

I wonder if they have Tortilla flavored ice cream or maybe some MASECA!

[Crazy Larry]

I love the metal ceiling, the color and texture of the metal looks like the inside of a candy wrapper.
It made me think of looking for a possible golden ticket hidden somewhere inside.

[niknakk]

YAY!!! I CANT WAIT TO TRY THIS on my trip!!!!

[Timekeeper]

I hope by then they have indoor seating.


Timekeeper

[Jesser-pie]

I hope by then they have indoor seating.


Timekeeper

Me too. I never thought about but indoor seating in dlr is kind of limited... I love dining outside ... But when it's hot even shady areas won't help

[Diznygrl]

I THINK...the mural is awesome and it should look really neat when animated! But I also think they should put in some indoor seating. The chocolate shop part looks like a whole ton of wasted space to me. Because let's be honest here, what will most people really be going there for? For ice cream or to buy little packs of chocolate that you can get at the grocery store?

[Julieandtheboys]

Beautiful!

[victoriaskitten]

Thanks for the pictures we were so looking forward to the new Shop. Can't wait to see it in person.

[Cactushugr]

So...bag of free chocolate on your birthday?? I will be a frequent visitor, I am sure. Between this and Starbucks and Ecotinis DCA is so getting to be my favorite park!

[Wendygirl]

Yum - I like what they've done with the place! I'm going to swing by there tomorrow. Those chocolate dipped waffle cups look good.

[Flealick]

I was there yesterday around closing time and saw people in there working on the mural, and notices certain elements were moving, so it should be done soon. I was concerned by the lack of any queue, which I thought odd as they just remodeled Disneyland's ice cream shop to add a queue, but now that I see you just order as you go in, and then mill about until your order is ready, the process makes more sense to me. Dang, I just wish they'd soft-opened a day earlier!

---------- Post added 06-01-2012 at 06:43 PM ----------

Oh, but one question...no menu boards? How do you know what they have?

[MarenBoBarren]

YES so excited that the soft opening is happening in time for my trip!

[NRubus]

So I saw a pic of an actual sundae on twitter, and honestly, it doesn't really look like a $10 sundae to me, it looks too small and served in a small plastic cup. I would expect more for that price, although the description sounds really yummy!

MouseWait cheesecake ice cream topped w/strawberries under vanilla ice cream with blueberries whipcream,& choc cvrd berries Twitter / MouseWait: cheesecake ice cream toppe 6/1/12 7:03 PM

[Diznygrl]

^^Well that's not at all what I was expecting. It's been a few years since I've been to the one in WDW, so maybe they've started to cheapen out too, but when I was there they were serving things that looked like the menu pictures.