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

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

"It turned out to be the kind of place where people walk in -- anyone, from 2-year-olds to 90-year-olds -- and their jaws just drop," he noted with pride. "For those who remembered the old Coney Island, it brought back good memories. Those who appreciate design were looking at the materials and colors and shapes."

Each banquette back is fashioned in a shape reminiscent of an old-style wooden roller coaster -- an undulating, seductively sloping piece of maple woodwork resting on a framework of X-shaped wooden supports. Similar designs carry that roller-coaster motif throughout the restaurant; it also influenced the shape of the descending wall pieces over the bar area.

The restaurant's exhibition kitchen was a pre-existing element in the raw space before the concept's identity had been settled upon, Doff said. When interior design and construction of the Flying Fish Cafe began in earnest, the various elements were crafted to work around, as well as take advantage of, the display-cooking elements.

The "fish scale"-covered columns located throughout the restaurant were constructed of acrylic-modified plaster. To create the columns, a positive sculpture was molded from clay. A mold then was cast from the clay original, and the modified plaster was poured. Each column was individually poured and hand-sanded, and then sprayed with several layers of automotive-finish paint to create in the scales an illusion of depth and movement that could mimic the appearance of sunlight reflecting off a fish underwater.

The parachute jumps are constructed of structural steel and clad with light etched pewter and light etched brass. The parachutes are made of high-density polycarbonate cast from a mold, and are uplit with soft halogen light fixtures. The gold-leafed flying-fish icons hanging from the parachutes complete the scene, undeniably the stars of the offbeat attraction.

The parachute jumps' enormous steel columns were built in Canada, Dorf recalled. "I went up there four times just to make sure that it would all eventually fit together," he said. "I felt like Von Braun building the V2 rocket."

The light bulbs that protrude from the parachute-jump columns actually are not normal light bulbs at all. They are acrylic replicas of light bulbs that act as shells for the real light sources within them, bundles of fiber-optic cable. The network of fiber optics running through each column provides illumination without heat, helping to preserve a comfortable temperature in the dining room while also using far less electricity. The restaurant staff also can use a "color wheel," as Dorf calls it, located in the base of each parachute jump column, to select from a wide variety of colors for the lights, or to set the lights to cycle through a limited spectrum of colors.

The "ferris wheel" and "roller-coaster" walls, like the parachutes, are made from high-density polycarbonate on wood frames. The two walls are illuminated by a strong bank of fluorescent lights to call attention to their shapes and forms, and they lend a sense of excitement and energy to the whole room, Doff said.