Flying Fish Cafe a soaring success on Walt Disney World Resort's BoardWalk

Nation's Restaurant News, July 19, 1999 by David Mack

The inspiration for the Flying Fish Cafe came from a classic Coney Island roller coaster called the Flying Turns; one of the cars on that coaster was called the Flying Fish. The coaster was part of Coney Island's heyday during the 1920's, the so-called "Golden Age of roller coasters." Coasters built during that time reflected a daredevil attitude on the part of their designers, and were integral to the spirit of Coney Island, which architect Martin Dorf described as "its heightened sense of reality, its sense of joy, its mystique, with grotesque shapes and rides like fish that swallowed you whole."

Dorf, a founder and principal of Dorf Associates Interior Design, a New York-based design-and-architecture firm that specializes in restaurant, retail and entertainment design, was retained by The Walt Disney World Co. to craft a seafood restaurant for its Orlando, Fla., foodservice-and-retail venue known as The BoardWalk. Disney executives Wing Chao, executive vice president of master planning, architecture and design for Walt Disney Imagineering, and Dieter Hannig, Walt Disney World Co.'s vice president of food and beverage, were seeking a restaurant that could appeal to adults as well as to children, while serving a more upscale menu than some of its neighbors.

"Dieter Hannig, Wing Chao and several others wanted something memorable and gleeful and joyous," Dorf recalled of the early stages of development. "Visually, they didn't want a place that looked like one where you'd eat 'mashed potatoes and brown things.'"

In addition to achieving those initial goals and avoiding those missteps, the finished restaurant, Dorf noted, "ended up being fairly sophisticated in its use of materials."

Upon entering the Flying Fish Cafe, the first thing guests notice is the aroma of cooking fish and the dancing tongues of fire from the exhibition cooking area's open-flame grill, which is located on a direct line of sight from the front door. Looking around from floor to ceiling, one instantly notes the fish-hook and lily-pad light fixtures, as well as the undulating shape of the "wave wall," in the foyer that, according to Dorf, conveys to guests that they have entered the "domain of the flying fish."

As one moves deeper into the 180-seat, 5,000-square-foot restaurant, it becomes apparent that the cavernous space has embodied the spirit of Coney Island in its abstract, dreamlike shapes and forms, such as the roller-coaster-shaped elements atop the banquettes, which are shaped like the cars on a whip ride; the towering parachute jumps with their flying-fish pairs bounding over trapeze bars; and fish-scale motifs of all kinds and sizes, on everything from the walls to the floors. The perimeter wall is adorned by a mural inspired by the classic fun-house attractions and amusement park rides of old Coney Island.

"The notion of Coney Island drew its context from the BoardWalk itself," Dorf said. "The environment around the restaurant was very much like a 1920s- or 1930s-era place along the seaside, similar to the Atlantic City boardwalk.

"What made the design of the Flying Fish work for me," he added, "was that there's a combination of so many materials and ideas and thoughts. But I think that for me the most important thing was I loved Coney Island, as much as anybody could."

The tile floor of the Flying Fish Cafe is an abstract impression of the ocean floor. The materials are ceramic tiles chosen for their durability, color-fastness, cleanability and cost-effectiveness. The salmon-colored grout was selected to contrast with the predominately blue-green color scheme of the tiles, which were manufactured by Colorco in the form of complete repeat patterns on finished sheets, which then were cut to fit the dimensions of the room.

The restaurant's carpet makes effective use of the flying-fish icon, which also is used in the store's signage, menu design and expendables such as paper napkins. The minimalistic icon evokes the image of a fish swimming upstream within a pattern of waves and sand. Its display of undulating movement creates not only visual interest, but also a sense of the waves and currents of the ocean.

Resting atop the tiled and carpeted floors is an assortment of carefully selected furniture pieces, ranging from stock chairs, deuces and four-tops to custom-fabricated banquettes. The simple table settings feature an offset, metal square insert within a light maple framing, inviting comparisons with the distortions of a fun-house mirror. A bowl of fresh lemons serves as the centerpiece element for each table, adding color and reinforcing the Flying Fish Cafe's commitment to excellent fresh seafood.

The large, comfortably padded banquettes divide the enormous main room of the restaurant into intimate areas punctuated by the verticality of the parachute jumps, creating a sense of separate environments in an otherwise tunnel-like environment. The banquette forms were custom-designed to emulate the shape of cars on a whip ride, and their varying fabrics were chosen for their patterns' brightness and "carnival-like playfulness," Doff said.