Disney executives rejected new ideas for five years from Steve Schussler, the Twin Cities restaurant creator who made millions with Rainforest Cafe and other colorful restaurants.
As Disney Co. advances Downtown Disney, a shopping, dining and entertainment complex near the amusement parks, executives wanted something more sophisticated than the Rainforest Cafe, shrieking monkeys and dinosaurs, like Schussler’s other restaurants.
So he turned to the appeal of Lake Minnetonka, near where he lives, to craft the now most lavish restaurant at the Disney complex–The Boathouse.
The 600-seat restaurant opened last week in a quiet fashion by Disney standards. Company executives, Schussler and other partners spoke about the restaurant before the ribbon cutting ceremony. It was a low-key start compared to the opening of the Rainforest Cafe in 1996.
Crowds formed anyway, drawn from the restaurant’s most distinctive off-menu attraction. The interest of the restaurant is a fleet of Amphicars, a car-boat convertible, made in Germany in the 1960s that is now one of the rarest vehicles on the planet.
Steve Schussler’s idea for The Boathouse began to form a few years ago when he drove his own Amphicar into Lake Minnetonka with his dog.