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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...