Tony’s Town Square Restaurant Review

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Are you trying to figure out where to eat during your day in Magic Kingdom? Tony’s Town Square restaurant is one of several options you’ll come across in you research.

But is it a good choice compared to the other options to be found? This Tony’s Town Square review takes a look at the atmosphere, menu, food quality, and overall experience. So let’s get started!

Tony’s Town Square Restaurant General Info

Let’s take a look at the basic information for Tony’s Town Square Restaurant. This is a table service restaurant located inside Magic Kingdom. Tony’s Town Square serves lunch and dinner.

A park ticket is required in order to go to this restaurants.

Tony’s Town Square is eligible for reservations through Disney’s Advance Dining Reservation system. It is a fairly popular restaurant at Magic Kingdom, so make reservations just to be safe.

If you haven’t done so already, make sure you know how to make your Disney dining reservations.

When/If the dining plan ever returns (which it will evTony’s Town Square uses one table service credit per meal. If you are an Annual Passholder or a Disney Vacation Club member, you qualify for a 10% discount (excluding alcohol).

Location

Guests at Magic Kingdom will find Tony’s Town Square almost immediately upon entering the park. As soon as you pass under the train station, look all the way over to the right, and there it is.

During normal times, this building is also the location of a meet and greet with Mickey Mouse and other characters.

Theme and Appearance

As I’m sure you can guess from looking through some of the photos in this post, Tony’s Town Square is themed after Disney’s Lady and the Tramp.

Of course, with that as the theme, this simply must be an Italian eatery! Spaghetti and meatballs for one, perhaps?

Seating in the restaurant is spread out in three different sections.

The first section you come to is full of wood and paintings, which a black and white checkerboard floor. Despite this, it doesn’t feel dark or closed in. It has a rather cozy feel to it.

The next section is a large, glass walled room in the style of a conservatory. This room is very bright and airy, with tables and chairs which make me think of old fashioned ice cream parlors.

Finally, through the doors of the conservatory, you get to the outside dining area on the front porch of the building. This is a prime viewing location to people watch or catch a glimpse of the character cavalcades as they go through.

Tony’s Town Square Restaurant Menu

Who knows how long this will continue, but currently, the menus offered at the restaurant are digital. This is part of Disney’s pandemic adjustments to limit contact and exposure.

Guests are given a little placard with a SKU on it. Once you use your cell phone camera, a link appears and it takes you to the online menu.

For guests with food allergies: the online menu includes the allergy menu so you don’t need to ask for a separate menu.

The lunch and dinner menus are the same, with the same prices. For the most up to date menu, go directly to Disney’s official menu for Tony’s Town Square Restaurant.

Lunch and Dinner Menu

Antipasti (Appetizer)

• Fried Mozzarella: Herb-marinated Fresh Mozzarella with Creamy Tomato Sauce
• Caesar Salad: Wedge-style Hearts of Romaine, Tony’s House-made Caesar Dressing, Romano-Focaccia Crostini
• Seasonal Soup
• Garden Salad: Mixed Greens, Balsamic Dressing, Olive Medley, Marinated Artichokes, Tomato, and Shaved Rainbow Carrots (Plant-based)
• Caprese: Vine-ripened Tomatoes, Fresh Mozzarella, and Balsamic Glaze

Secondi Piatti (Entrees)

Desserts

• Italian Strawberry Shortcake: Vanilla Cake with Whipped Topping, Balsamic-marinated Strawberries, and Fresh Basil (Plant-based)
• Gelato: Italian-style Ice Cream. Choice of Chocolate or Vanilla
• Tiramisu: Espresso-soaked Sponge sheet layered with Sweet Mascarpone Cream and served with Chocolate Sauce
• Chocolate Hazelnut Budino: Rich Chocolate-Hazelnut Custard with Chocolate Torta Topped with Caramel, Toasted Meringue and Pralines

Kids’ Menu

Appetizers

• Garden Salad
• Grapes
• Sliced Apples

Kids’ Create Your Own Entrees (select one)

All of the kids’ entrees come with two selections (see below) and a choice of small lowfat milk, small Dasani water, or a small Minute Maid apple juice.

Kids’ Create Your Own Selections

Review of Tony’s Town Square Restaurant

Now that we’ve gotten all of the basic details out of the way, what did we think of our meal? Well, let me first set the scene: picture a 12 year old at Magic Kingdom on her birthday during a surprise birthday trip to Disney World.

Tony’s Town Square was specifically chosen for this meal based on the availability of outdoor dining. Because, you know, pandemic and all that. We had the very first reservation of the day.

This is one of only two table service reservations we made during this trip because our preference at this time is to be able to eat outdoors.

Check-In

Right now, Disney offers mobile check in for the Table Service restaurants. Shortly before our reservation time, I received a notification through My Disney Experience.

The check in process was pretty straightforward. It even asked if there were any special events being celebrated at the meal. I gleefully tapped the birthday box.

Once you submit the check in, the app tells you to go to the restaurant and wait for the push notification that your table is ready. Once you get that notification you go inside to the check in desk.

However, the virtual check-in did not have a spot to request and outside table. So I went inside right away to put in my request to the host.

The table was ready pretty quickly after that. Like I barely sat down on the bench outside before I got the message.

We were led in to our table. Unfortunately, said table was located in the conservatory style dining room. The door leading outside to the porch seating was open, so at least there was fresh air coming in.

Mind you, we were the very first guests seated, and therefore the very first to request outdoor seating. I assumed that perhaps they weren’t seating anyone outside yet, perhaps due to making it easier on the waitstaff. Because of this assumption I never repeated my request.

That was my mistake. For the remainder of our meal we watched family after family get seated outside. So that made me a little salty. I was the first person there to request those tables, but my request was ignored.

Perhaps there was some other reason why we weren’t seated there. I’ll never know because I’m not assertive enough to kick up a fuss.

So, fair warning, this element definitely colored my overall impression of our dining experience. Combine this with the rather offhand “Happy Birthday” directed to my daughter, I was not a happy camper.

Atmosphere

Overall, I like the atmosphere of the restaurant. I like how the dining rooms have three very different aesthetics. Each of the dining areas has their own charm.

I felt the main dining room had a warm and homey feeling to it. This is the only room with overt Lady and the Tramp theming. The walls are lined with images from the movie.

All of the wood details are what give this dining area such a warm feeling. That, combined with the mirrors make the room feel light, despite the dark colors.

You’ll also notice in the images that plexiglass panels were added between the tables to add a barrier between parties.

But if you really want to talk about light filled, then the next dining area might be your jam. I don’t even know what to call this room, hence I keep referring to it as the conservatory.

It is tremendously bright and airy. The tables are decently spread out from one another, leaving a lot of room between the tables. Having never been to Tony’s Town Square before, I have no idea if this is typical or not. My guess is that there are typically more tables in here than what we experienced.

However, there is one major downside to this dining area: it is extremely loud. Because of the tile floor, windows, and general lack of any sort of fabric to absorb sound, everything sounds loud.

This is made worse once you factor in all the people talking, kids dropping things on the floor, babies crying, etc. Once you add in the waiter wearing a face mask, it was impossible to hear him at times.

Our whole situation wasn’t helped by the fact that a very large family with a few toddlers was at one of the tables. They were all VERY loud, which just echoed with the acoustics.

The final dining area, the porch, is the smallest of the dining rooms. I never went out there to count the tables, but there really weren’t many, my guess is less than 10.

But as I mentioned above, the real coup with this dining area is the view onto the square. From here you can see characters on the Train Station balcony, the cavalcades, and anything else going on in the area.

And oh yeah, you’re in the open air while you take off your face mask to eat. See, still salty.

Food Review

Ok, I’m going to talk about the food without taking into consideration the negative feeling we had regarding the seating situation. It’s possible our bad logistical experience was just a one off, but the food should be consistent with what we experienced.

On the whole, the food was fine. And I guess that about sums it up. I don’t think I’ve ever said that about any other restaurant I’ve eaten at in all of Disney World.

I find the menu to be rather uninspired, bordering on boring. However, I do recognize this fact will appeal to many people who just want a nice, basic Italian meal.

Each table is given bread service with an herbed olive oil dip. For those with food allergies, you get your own separate bread service with individually wrapped rolls.

Chicken Parmigiana

A staple of any Italian restaurant! This is a go to for my husband whenever we are anywhere with Italian food. But this time, it was my sister who ordered the chicken parm. Here are her thoughts about the meal:

“I mean, I ate the whole thing, so it wasn’t bad at all and certainly did the job of getting me the calories I needed for the day. But the first thought I had after I finished was that I liked Dad’s chicken parm better.”

And there you have it. My father makes better chicken parm than Tony’s Town Square. Not that I would know, because our Dad certainly never made chicken parm for me (he never used to cook when I was local) and now I can’t even eat it anyway.

My observations on her meal include the fact that the portion size was pretty generous, so you have no reason to leave the table still hungry.

Scampi Pasta

The Scampi Pasta was my choice for the meal. Because of that, mine was made with gluten free pasta, but the regular version is identical other than that substitution.

My thoughts on this are very similar to my sister’s thoughts on the chicken parmigiana. I ate the whole thing (and probably could’ve eaten more because I was starving) so it’s not like it was a bad meal.

It wasn’t bad, in fact it was pretty tasty. The herb butter sauce perhaps could’ve been a little more flavorful, and plentiful, but it had enough flavor.

As with many seafood based dishes, I think they could be a bit more generous when doling out the protein. Of course they stuck it all on the top to make it look plentiful. I cut my shrimp into small pieces to spread it out.

But really, this is the case with pretty much every restaurant you go to when it comes to seafood, so that’s not a hit against Tony’s per se.

So again, we have a meal that was simply fine. A bit run of the mill. Which isn’t what I’ve come to expect from Disney restaurants.

Kids’ Meals

Let’s face it, the kids’ menu at most of the restaurants have very similar menu items. At least it seems that way because my kids tend to pick the same types of food over and over again.

This time was no different as my kids picked the Mac n Cheese and the Pizza. My daughter is on that cusp where she still usually prefers the kids’ meal options, and adult entrees are just too much food for her, though she often likes the options on the adult menu more.

However, my favorite touch of the entire dining experience came in the form of the cupcake side option.

Both of my kids decided to get the cupcake, to the surprise of no one. I’m actually surprised they didn’t get the cupcake AND the gelato.

Isn’t that thing so cute? I love the nod to the most famous scene in the whole movie, the spaghetti sharing kiss!

However, all of that cuteness comes in the form of fondant. And I think most of us know that fondant doesn’t exactly taste good.

This didn’t deter my daughter as she ate her pretty quickly. However, the big surprise came from my son, who took one bite of the cupcake and put it down. My chocoholic son who never turns down a chocolate cupcake refused to eat it.

Don’t worry, my daughter inhaled his too, so it didn’t go to waste.

Other than that, their meals were both pretty standard for what they were, but they were happy with it.

Final Verdict on Tony’s Town Square

So, do I plan to eat at Tony’s Town Square restaurant again any time soon? No. No I don’t…

Basically, the only reason I plan to eat there again in the future is to update this review, or if there are reports that things have changed.

Again, I admit that a large part of this is related to the bad feelings generated by the seating arrangement issues. And I know that it’s not possible to honor all seating requests.

But seriously, I was the first person at the restaurant for the entire day. At least 3 groups got seated outside within 15 minutes of us being seated inside. So I call shenanigans on that one.

And the food just wasn’t good enough to make up for this poor start.

There are so many other options for a good meal at Magic Kingdom. Really, ANY other table service restaurant in Magic Kingdom has better food than Tony’s Town Square.

As an alternate to Tony’s Town Square, I highly recommend the Plaza Restaurant. The food is much better, very reasonably priced, and the Cast Members bend over backwards to make sure you have a good experience.

Your Thoughts

If you have any thoughts or feelings about Tony’s Town Square I’d love to hear them. Was your experience luke warm like ours was? Did you have a great time and great food? Let me know in the comments below.

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