Photo by Chris Bales, 2005

Welcome to French Market Restaurant in Yester New Orleans Square. The restaurant efficiently serves guests with twin cafeteria lines and seats 250 guests at a time on its outdoor terrace. But you’re here for the food, not the efficiency.

You’re also here for the French Quarter atmosphere—not the raucous parties and drinking of the real French Quarter, but its timeless charm and music.

Photo by Allen Huffman, 2007

French Market entrance, as it looked in 2007

Photo by Allen Huffman, 2022

French Market entrance, as it looked in 2022

Before you go in, promise yourself that you’ll take in the imaginative touches inside that elevate this eatery.

Photo by Allen Huffman, 2009

“Pressed-tin” ceiling

Photo by Chris Bales, 2023

Domed “skylight” (not a real skylight)

Photo by Allen Huffman, 2009

One of two “Nouvelle Orleans, anno 1803” ceramic tile murals

Photo by Chris Bales, 2023

The other “Nouvelle Orleans, anno 1803” ceramic tile mural

Two tile murals depict ceremonies in New Orleans marking the completion of the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. The American flag is being raised for the first time over Place d’Armes (which would later be renamed Jackson Square). The $15 million deal between President Thomas Jefferson and Napoleon Bonaparte of France added 828,000 square miles to the United States, more than doubling the size of the young nation.

New Orleans Square cost $18 million. That’s $3 million more than the Louisiana Purchase and $1 million more than the original cost of all of Disneyand in 1955.

Photo by Allen Huffman, 2009

Cafeteria—or “buffeteria”—trays

Now it’s time to get some food. Start by grabbing a tray. Cafeterias were popular in the 1960s. You can see exactly what you are getting. You don’t have to wait for the kitchen to prepare your meal. Cafeterias work well at a theme park, where your time is valuable.

Only this one is a buffeteria—a portmanteau of buffet and cafeteria—which sounds classier than just cafeteria. That seems fair. After all, the food here is much better than the self-serve plates of meatloaf and little bowls of Jello cubes at traditional cafeterias.

What looks good to you?

Photo by Allen Huffman, 2009

Dixieland Cajun Chicken Salad

How about a Dixieland Cajun Chicken Salad? That’s Cajun breast of chicken, with roasted corn, peppers, onion, black-eyed peas, avocado, and tomato. It’s on a crisp bed of romaine, arugula and frisee lettuce, served with a zesty “Louisiana” vinaigrette and cheddar corn bread.

Photo by Allen Huffman, 2009

Roast Beef Royale

If beef is more to your liking, consider the Roast Beef Royale. The beef is slow-roasted, generously sliced, and served with Cognac peppercorn jus. It’s accompanied by “market” smashed potatoes, seasonal vegetables, and cheddar corn bread.

Photo by Chris Bales, 2023

Jambalaya on a standard Disney paper plate

How about something really traditional? Jambalaya is a culinary staple of New Orleans. It’s a stew of Creole seafood, chicken, and Andouille sausage served over rice. Jambalaya traces its origin to Spanish Colonial settlers approximating their native paella using local ingredients.

Just be aware that the menu keeps changing. Not everything is Creole or Cajun, but the focus is on the cuisine that one might find in the city of New Orleans and elsewhere in the state of Louisiana. Well, actually, it would be difficult to find something called Louisiana Beef Stew in a sourdough bread bowl in the real New Orleans, but it’s quite popular here.

Photo by Allen Huffman, 2009

Desserts

Photo by Allen Huffman, 2009

With a nod to Mickey

It’s easy to pass on dessert when your choices are just a list on a menu. But when the actual desserts are right in front of you, just inches from your tray, it’s much harder.

Photo by Chris Bales, 1988

Outdoor seating

Photo by Allen Huffman, 2017

Fabric shade panels

The seating is all outdoors. There’s shade from above and often a breeze, so it’s quite pleasant, even on warm, sunny days.

Photo by Werner Weiss, 2014

French Market Jazz

Photo by Chris Bales, 2023

Jambalaya Jazz

Now you’re getting to the best part—if your timing is right. Not only do you have a delicious meal in front of you and a restful, shady place to sit, you also have live (and lively) music filling air. Groups with names like the Delta Ramblers, Bootleggers Pirate Band, and Jambalaya Jazz provide entertainment, usually in the form of Dixieland Jazz. You now feel as if you’re a thousand miles from the theme park.

Photo by Chris Bales, 2023

Not so good on a rainy day

French Market Restaurant is close to perfect—but only if it’s not raining. Outdoor seating has fabric panels for shade, but they don’t help enough in the rain.

French Market Restaurant was one of the original features of New Orleans Square when Walt Disney and New Orleans mayor Victor H. Schiro dedicated Disneyland’s first new “land” on July 24, 1966. Schiro used the opportunity to name Walt Disney an honorary citizen of New Orleans.

According to The Imagineering Field Guide to Disneyland (Disney Editions, 2008), the mayor commented that New Orleans Square looked just like its namesake, although “he was somewhat miffed when Walt pointed out that the Disneyland version was cleaner.”

Later that year, on December 15, Walt Disney died at age 65. Although he was able to experience New Orleans Square and could see Pirates of the Caribbean under construction, the ride did not open until March 18, 1967.

For more than 56 years, French Market Restaurant was a Disneyland guest favorite. Over the years, the menu (and prices), the bands, and the color of the shade fabric would change. But, overall, French Market remained remarkably constant.

In 1996, Disneyland made an unpopular change—and rolled it back before the end of the year. According to the Los Angeles Times (“Guests Gong Plastic Utensils at Cafe Orleans” by Marla Dickerson, Dec. 17, 1996): “Speaking of food faux pas, the silverware and real dinner plates are back at the Cafe Orleans and French Market Restaurant after diners there raised a stink about the plastic utensils foisted upon them a few months back.”

Apparently, the decision makers at Disneyland forgot about 1996. You might have noticed that food photos from 2009 in this Yesterland article show attractive melamine plates and real metal cutlery, but the food photo from 2023 shows a paper plate and plastic fork.

Photo by Chris Bales, 2023

French Market permanently closed

Photo by Chris Bales, 2023

Sign on the construction wall

On January 12, 2023, Disneyland announced that French Market Restaurant would be reimagined into Tiana’s Palace, based on the restaurant in Walt Disney Animation Studios’ 2009 film, The Princess and the Frog. It made sense, given the film’s New Orleans setting and the reimagining of nearby Splash Mountain into Tiana’s Bayou Adventure.

The final day of operation for French Market Restaurant was February 16, 2023. Construction walls went up.

Artist Concept/Disneyland Resort © Disney 2023

French Market transformed into Tiana’s Palace

Concept art released with the announcement showed that the exterior of French Market Restaurant would not change much—except for the incongruous steamboat smokestacks and pilothouse added to the roof.

Frame capture © Disney 2009

Tiana and Nadeem imagining how an old sugar mill could become a restaurant

Frame capture © Disney 2009

Tiana and Nadeem, proud of how they’ve transformed the sugar mill into Tiana’s Palace

In the film, Tiana makes her dream restaurant a reality through adaptive reuse of an old sugar mill. Adding steamboat touches to the industrial smokestacks and other elements of the symmetrical building, it takes on an appearance suggesting a Mississippi riverboat. Tiana’s Palace in the film is not in the French Quarter, but in New Orleans’ Warehouse District.

Frame capture © Disney 2009

Festive interior of Tiana’s Palace in The Princess and the Frog

The interior of Tiana’s Palace in the film is a glorious space, with diners on multiple levels, round tables with elaborate tablecloths, and a jazz band on a raised stage.

The announcement from Disneyland never promised a replica of the restaurant from the film, only “much of the same pinch of pizzazz and flair.”

Photo by Chris Bales, 2023

Riverboat wheelhouse and smokestacks on the roof of what had been French Market

Photo by Christian Thompson, Disneyland Resort © Disney

Blue skylight inside Tiana’s Palace, where French Market had a white skylight

Photo by Christian Thompson, Disneyland Resort © Disney

Mural of the bayou, where French Market had a tile mural of New Orleans

With an opening date of September 7, 2023, Tiana’s Palace at Disneyland turned out to be a nicely reimagined version of the quick-service French Market restaurant, with more emphasis on authentic Creole food. There’s not much resemblance to its counterpart in the film. The space is constrained by the dimensions of French Market Restaurant’s interior. The seating is outdoors.

It’s too bad there wasn’t room at Disneyland to leave French Market Restaurant as it was, and to add a separate Tiana’s Palace, more like the one in the film.

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Updated September 6, 2023