Sometimes, only a burger next to an animatronic tree frog will do.
In May 2022 , two YouTubers get across the area to take ona culinary pursuit for the eld . Eddy Burback and Ted Nivison planned to visit the 18 remainingRainforest Cafesin the U.S. and Canada over the course of 21 days . Starting in California , they trek across the wide sweep of North America to sample the restaurant chain ’s beef lavanachosand safari tike . The twosome seem to have very different experiences : Burback seem downtrodden , disillusioned by his suburban , hobo camp - themed surround ; while Nivison gleefully cavorts with the animatronic elephants and mirthfully scarf down his Rastafarian alimentary paste .
What the two seem to divvy up is a case of winking wistfulness for the restaurant or for what it once represent . It ’s a mutual thread in a distinctly millennian and Gen Z subculture that regards experiential concatenation restaurants like Rainforest Cafe , Planet Hollywood , and other trace of the nineties with equal - partsnostalgiaand irony .
The Rainforest Cafe opened its first location in Minnesota ’s Mall of America in 1994 , and it enjoyed geezerhood of succeeder before sale started to slump circa 2000 . As other as 1998,The New York Timesreported that themed novelty restaurants were struggling , and the Rainforest Cafe was one of the victims of the dawn of the unexampled millenary . A 2000 acquirement by Landry ’s , Inc. , a restaurant hold ship’s company , hold on the chain alive , albeit without the enthusiasm it had once generated . During the aughts , localization across the country closed one by one . Now , the chain is a darkness of what it once was , with fewer than 20 branches for Burback and Nivison to chaffer on their crabbed - country pursuit .
Design by Maitane Romagosa for Thrillist
In the intervening years , American culture agitate sharply . Slews of suburban mall , in which many Rainforest Cafes were located , closed during the Great Recession , their spaces relegated to artifacts from a former economical age . “ Over the last decade , I think there were about 900 center in the United States … . About a third of them have closed , ” said Ronald Friedman , partner at Marcum LLP , a house that bear consumer research . Americans worm with the ceding back of 2008 , no longer groovy to spend hundreds of dollars for what many wish as sub - par nutrient — jungle - theme surroundings or not . Stats from the United States Department of Agriculture show thatrestaurant spending dropped 13%during the Great Recession .
The years precede Trump ’s election — and the sociopolitical chaos we ’ve been mired in since — have show in an eld of critique of consumerism and capitalism , asking us to be more thoughtful about what we buy and who we buy it from , as well as who is strike in the process . According to a 2021 survey,85 % of consumers , peculiarly millennials and Gen Z , claim they are uncoerced to pay more for sustainable products .
For some modernistic diners , existential restaurants like the Rainforest Cafe represent the ethnical landscape painting of a very specific time in American story . In the late 1990s , those with the ease and privilege to do so could prosecute in noncritical consumerism , and might choose to shun political relation in favor of the finer thing in living , such as brownie “ volcanoes ” dripping with every sweet topping conceivable and gift shops brim with $ 30 stuffed toys .
Rainforest Cafe
The YouTube channelThe Food Theoristsalso links the popularity of the Rainforest Cafe as a natural elongation of the variety of chinchy environmentalism espoused in the ’ 90s : economize the rainforest by eating a juicy , high mallow - cross rainforestburgerin a synthetic jungle !
near 30 years after the birth of the Rainforest Cafe , some young eating place - goers are rediscover the iconic eatery experiences of their younker , perhaps seeking the simple mindedness of a past era — both on a personal and ethnic level . In September 2022 , Danny Lavery wrote about the chaotic joyfulness of Medieval Times inFood & Wine . TikTokers in their 20 arevisiting the American Girl Café , reliving thetea parties of their youth .
“ You do n’t go to Rainforest Cafe for anything other than playfulness . There ’s a charm in the lack of pretence and the want of shine to it . ”
Rainforest Cafe
In an article forInsider , diary keeper Alanis King attribute some of the modern - mean solar day enthusiasm for the Rainforest Cafe to Gen Z ’s captivation with the Y2 K epoch . “ I think we ’re at a very interesting fourth dimension where Y2 K is come back , and everyone ’s … reaching back into this time from when I was a minor , like former ’ XC , early 2000s , and it does kind of does make you nostalgic . ”
Spencer Cammarano , a Brooklyn - found public relations executive and longtime Rainforest Cafe partisan , agrees . “ You do n’t go to Rainforest Cafe for anything other than fun . There ’s a charm in the deficiency of pretentiousness and the lack of shine to it . ”
But , for some , there ’s irony to visiting the Rainforest Cafe and other type of experiential restaurant . Burback , one of the two YouTubers who traveled to multiple establishments , seems to expect so little from the chain thathe expresses genuine shockwhen his visit to theSan Antoniolocation was actually somewhat enjoyable . “ So , this Rainforest Cafe is , like , actually a cool blot to consume . That does n’t really make sense to me . I ’m supposed to be in a mall and depressed . ”
King is less surprised . “ Irony ’s just part of New online culture , and I think that ’s why a lot of Y2 K stuff is coming back and why stuff like the Rainforest Cafe is more in conversation . ”
Robert Byrne , the music director of consumer and industriousness insights at Technomic , Inc. , a food table service direction consulting ship’s company , assign some of the restaurant ’s post - pandemic achiever to the fact that , despite its age , the Rainforest Cafe is verysocial mediafriendly . “ [ It ’s ] visual , there ’s hooey happening all the time . If you call up about cognitive content creation too , there ’s a relatability that work on there . So , if you are link up with your peers , and you ’re connecting via something that is nostalgic , there is that shared experience . ”
There ’s an chemical element of the ridiculous , too . An age restaurant posing as a jungle , teen play - jousting at a dinner field , a café for dolls that have faded into irrelevance — it ’s all a bit leftover , and echoes the cyberspace ’s fascination withliminal spaces , largely conceptualized in picture that seem vaguely reminiscent of the ’ 90s but broken down , abandoned , empty .
Whether you come on experiential restaurants like Rainforest Cafe , American Girl Cafe , orMedieval Timesin a purely nostalgic direction , happy to once again dine amongst the animatronic gorillas , it ’s hard to abnegate that these restaurant are — and have always been — devote to fun .
In our very high - stakes forward-looking geological era , rife with sociocultural unrest , political dramatic event , and a pandemic , many people at the same time crave escapism and a sense of belong . Hopefully , you do n’t have to cross state line to line up it .
