When I visit Walt Disney World, most of my dining happens at Quick Service restaurants. I like the simplicity of a quicker meal that doesn’t involve a reservation or table service, and it’s a great way to stay on budget. Additionally, most Quick Service locations have Mobile Ordering available, which can help speed things along when the dinner bell rings.

Not all Quick Service locations are created equal though, and over the years I have developed a list of personal favorites and top recommendations from other guests. In no particular order, here are my Top 5 Quick Service Restaurants at Disney World:

Docking Bay 7 Food and Cargo – Galaxy’s Edge, Disney’s Hollywood Studios

Heavy on galactic theming from the menu nomenclature to the interior design, Docking Bay 7 Food and Cargo is the main eatery for travelers on Batuu in Star Wars – Galaxy’s Edge. The offerings here are elevated versions of theme park fare: crispy chicken tenders with mac and cheese and roasted vegetables, a poke bowl, and barbeque pork ribs with red cabbage slaw and a blueberry muffin to name a few. If this is your first visit to Black Spire Outpost, be sure to read the item descriptions and don’t be confused or put off by the names of these dishes. The “Kashyyk Beef and Sweet Topato Salad” might sound odd, the description of,  “tender sliced beef, roasted sweet potatoes and purple potatoes, served on arugula and watercress topped with spicy yellow aji cheese sauce and pickled onions” sounds pretty delicious.

This is the larger of the two Quick Service restaurants found in Galaxy’s Edge at Disney’s Hollywood Studios, the other being Ronto Roasters, which primarily carries the pork-filled Ronto Wrap.  If you are dining in Galaxy’s Edge, this is definitely the place you’ll want to head to for a full meal – and they actually serve the famous Ronto Wrap here after 3:00pm as well. The immersive theming of Docking Bay 7 cannot be understated. Guests can enjoy their meal inside a spacious hangar bay seated on shipping crates or barrels, or tucked into alcoves created by larger shipping containers with their side panels removed. When you are living your Star Wars story at the parks, this is the ideal place to stop for provisions.

The Polite Pig – Disney Springs

A mix of Quick Service and Table Service, with an extensive menu for all pallets, The Polite Pig is in a league of its own when it comes to ranking these locations at Walt Disney World. Guests can choose from platters of pork shoulder, half chicken, cedar plank salmon, USDA prime brisket, and more, with various sandwich options and enough sides to feed a small army (or your extended family traveling together). The location operates as a Quick Service restaurant in terms of ordering your food at a walk-up counter, but once you are seated, servers will bring your food to you and take additional drink orders from your table.

What brings many guests to The Polite Pig beyond their culinary offerings is the extensive bourbon menu available both within the dining area, and at the outdoor walk-up bar. With over 90 different types of whiskeys (yep, you read that correctly), this spot is a bourbon lover’s spirited dream.

This is not your average BBQ joint. The owners of The Polite Pig (James and Julie Petrakis, and James’s brother Brian) are James Beard award nominees – three times over. (For comparison, Sigourney Weaver has been nominated for three Academy Awards and hasn’t won. She’s still a big deal.) It’s hard to believe this location is a considered a Quick Service restaurant, but let’s not complain! For guests using the Disney Dining Plan, this is without a doubt the best use of a Quick Service Dining Credit you’ll find.

Satu’li Canteen – Pandora: World of Avatar at Disney’s Animal Kingdom

Immersive theming with a unique menu, Satu’li Canteen is easily my favorite Quick Service location, and one of the best on property overall. The restaurant is themed as a former RDA mess hall, where the humans who were mining on Pandora would have dined in between shifts. Having been reclaimed by natural growth and the natives, you will see Na’vi culture intertwined throughout, with woven art and designs adorning the dining area.

The menu here is distinctive among Disney Quick Service locations. For lunch and dinner, guests can build their own bowls, choosing from a selection of “base” carbs, a protein or two, and a distinctive sauce to compliment a vegetable slaw and boba balls. These bowls are delicious, and having the ability to mix and match different components gives you a huge number of options to choose from. My personal favorite is the smoked chimichurri braised beef bowl with noodles and the charred green onion vinaigrette – seeing and smelling the beef turning on a spit as you enter the restaurant seals the deal on my choice every time.

Another fan favorite on this menu is the Cheeseburger Steamed Pods. Allegedly based off Joe Rohde’s grandmother’s Sloppy Joe recipe, these bao buns are filled with a tasty mix of ground beef, ketchup, mustard, pickle, and onion – much like the cheeseburger egg rolls in Magic Kingdom, just in a thicker bao bun vessel. Pro Tip: Build yourself a bowl for your main meal, and grab the kid’s meal version of this for a smaller portion so you can still try it out!

In 2024, Satu’li Canteen began serving breakfast, which added a much-needed morning quick service option to the park with the earliest opening time. The frittata with beef is an elevated choice — pair it with a new cold brew to fuel up for an adventurous day ahead at Disney’s Animal Kingdom. (Check out my post about The Perfect Rope Drop Morning at Animal Kingdom for more tips!)

Capt. Cook’s – Disney’s Polynesian Resort and Village

The Magic Kingdom Resorts are home to some of the best restaurants on property, and that extends to their Quick Service options as well. Leaning into the Polynesian theming of the resort, Capt. Cook’s offerings include an Aloha Pork Sandwich, Thai Coconut Meatballs, and Pulled Pork Nachos, as well as a few “old reliables” like cheeseburgers and chicken tenders. This location is pool-adjacent and ideal if you are staying at the Polynesian and relaxing on a resort day. It’s also a fantastic location if you want to take a break from the hustle and bustle of Magic Kingdom and eat lunch at a nearby resort – just hop on the resort monorail, and you’ll be there in two stops.

One of my favorite perks of this location is the late-night dining menu, offering a few items until midnight. This has been an absolute savior once or twice after an ill-timed departure after the Magic Kingdom fireworks, considering the “late-night” options are few and far between on property. While the appetizer menu for Trader Sam’s Tiki Terrace is only available until 10pm, you can order from Capt. Cook’s until midnight and sit on the terrace late into the night.

Regal Eagle Smokehouse: Craft Drafts & Barbecue – America Pavilion, EPCOT

While EPCOT certainly has the highest volume of dining options, particularly when there is a festival happening (and when isn’t there a festival happening these days?), it lacks a bit in full-fledged Quick Service locations. There are definitely some must-try items from these places – like the Pretzel Bread Pudding at Sommerhaus in Germany, or the Egg Rolls from Lotus Blossom Café – but as a whole location, they leave much to be desired considering the volume of cuisine available at EPCOT.

Then we have Regal Eagle Smokehouse: Craft Drafts & Barbecue to the rescue. Inspired by the patriotism of Sam Eagle, this location pays homage to barbecue styles found throughout the United States with a Muppets-themed-flair that fits perfectly. The menu is large for a quick service spot, and there’s something for everyone – including burgers, brisket platters, dry-rub pork ribs, mac & cheese, cornbread, and watermelon for dessert.

This location (like many other Quick Service spots on this list) also offers Mobile Order, so if you find that the park is very busy and you aren’t interested in waiting in lines for Outdoor Kitchen items during a festival, it’s a good idea to place your order here ahead of time. You’ll have one less decision to make when your stomach starts rumbling.  There is also an outdoor walk-up bar featured at this location, and you can grab yourself a Moonshine Sour or Berry Sparkler (non-alcoholic) while you wait for your well-timed Mobile Order window to roll around. (There’s also a Joffrey’s Cart in the America Pavilion, for an early evening pick-me-up.)

Honorable Mentions

To avoid having a list of the Top 30 Quick Service Locations at Walt Disney World, I’ve put together a collection of honorable mentions. Some of these are purely personal favorites, and others make this back up list for reasons besides their food menus.

Backlot Express – Disney’s Hollywood Studios

One of the last vestiges of the old MGM Studios, Backlot Express is near and dear to my heart, and there is definitely a nostalgia factor involved when adding this to the honorable mentions list (and nearly putting it in my Top 5). Backlot Express has a fairly run-of-the-mill theme park menu with a variety of cheeseburgers and chicken tenders, but also carries some healthier, more robust options like a Cuban sandwich, a teriyaki chicken bowl, and a southwest salad. This is one of the few locations that has a self-service soda machine (hello, free refills!), as well as self-serve dipping sauces for those tasty chicken tenders. There’s a ridiculous amount of seating both indoors and outdoors, with shade and high ceiling fans over the patio to cool off.

Backlot Express is an Opening Day Quick Service location, and is themed as a re-creation of a movie set warehouse, complete with a machine shop, paint and plastics department, scenic department, and more. Around the seating area, you’ll find workplace signage and props, and in the past, you could even take a picture with the Toon Patrol paddy wagon from Who Framed Roger Rabbit? on display out front. There was a brief time where this location felt dated to me, but now with the ongoing changes to Disney’s Hollywood Studios, eating at Backlot Express feels like paying homage to the MGM Studios of yesteryear.

Pecos Bills Tall Tale Inn and Café – Frontierland, Magic Kingdom

I am not quite ready to put this (or any in-park Magic Kingdom Quick Service location for that matter) on this list of “My Top 5” but I absolutely need to include it on this list of honorable mentions. Pre-pandemic, Pecos Bills actually was the best Quick Service location in this theme park (which isn’t saying much). With tacos, burgers, and most importantly, an endless toppings bar, the Tall Tale Inn & Café once was the go-to spot in Magic Kingdom. Fast-forward a few years and the toppings bar (which never returned post-pandemic) is long gone, and the menu very lackluster.

While public outcry hasn’t seen the return of the toppings bar, we have seen an overhaul of the menu offerings at Pecos Bills, which has greatly improved this eatery. In late 2024, the culinary team pivoted to the “build your own bowl” set up, (hey, if it works for Satu’li Canteen, why not here?), and guests can now create a nacho bowl, rice bowl, salad bowl, or tamale plate, choosing from citrus-chipotle chicken, green chili pork, or coca-cola cherry braised beef for their proteins. I do wish they would add some cold veggies to these bowls, like optional shredded lettuce and diced tomato, but this new menu is a massive improvement to the offerings in recent years. With tons of seating both indoors and outdoors, this is a solid pick to fuel up and have a respite from the sun before hopping on Big Thunder Mountain Railroad.

Woody’s Lunch Box – Toy Story Land, Disney’s Hollywood Studios

When this location’s dining area reopens from a lengthy refurbishment, there might be some reshuffling of my Top 5. The BBQ Brisket Melt and “Totchos” are both delightful and filling, and the seasonal Daily Lunch Box Tarts are fan-favorites. For now, however, what keeps Woody’s Lunch Box from the recognition it deserves is the abysmal seating offered here.

Entirely outdoors with mostly standing-room tables or high-top seating, this is one of the worst places to eat a meal in all of Walt Disney World. It is blazing hot and there is virtually no shade in this land to begin with, and very few tables with umbrellas within the Quick Service area. If you are lucky enough to find a table with an umbrella, odds are that one part of your body will still be baking in the sun, because while ideal for the theming of the land, the plastic drink umbrellas do little in terms of offering real shade. Couple this with the fact that the menu items are mostly comfort foods served hot and better enjoyed in cooler temps, it makes it a bit of a chore to have lunch here.

Thankfully they are refurbishing this seating area, and I can’t imagine they would do so without adding in some sort of overhead covering and fans, in addition to making better use of the table space. As of now (May 2025), you will need to take your order from Woody’s Lunch Box over to Galaxy’s Edge, and try to find a table at Docking Bay 7 Food and Cargo or Ronto Roasters. (May the Force be with you…)

Note: The refurbished seating area has opened as of May 25, 2025. While the covering is an improvement, it’s still hot and crowded in this seating area.

Flame Tree BBQ – Discovery Island, Disney’s Animal Kingdom

A fan favorite with a huge menu, Flame Tree BBQ is one of the largest Quick Service locations in Disney’s Animal Kingdom. While I do not order food here frequently, I do love to relax in the seating area almost every time I visit this park. There are a couple of other quick service or snack locations nearby, including my personal favorite spot – the Smiling Crocodile taco stand – and I like to take my taco plate down to the waterfront tables overlooking Discovery River with Expedition Everest in the distance. (Note: As of June 2025 these tacos plates have sadly been replaced by other items at this location. I hope some version of them will be back in the future, perhaps in the Tropical Americas land when it opens.)

There are also pergolas scattered throughout this seating area for added shade. You’ll notice a “circle of life” motif throughout the restaurant, with colorful carvings, murals, and statues setting the vibe. As you meander along these paths towards the water, there are a few serving stations set up with necessities like utensils, napkins, and trash, so you don’t need to go all the way back up to the front. This is a great place to relax and feel like you are off the beaten path, while inside a busy theme park.

La Cantina de San Angel – Mexico Pavilion, EPCOT

Located along the waters of the World Showcase Lagoon, La Cantina de San Angel is one of four dining locations in Mexico (five, if you count La Cava de Tequila since you can order snacks there!). This location makes my Honorable Mentions list for two reasons: 1. La Cantina has a large menu for a quick service restaurant, including some very good nachos that can serve as a shareable or full meal. 2. The breeze off of World Showcase Lagoon when sitting outside is a slice of heaven on a hot day. Bonus reason: The dining area to San Angel Inn is open for overflow seating during the early part of the day, and this is a great spot to enjoy some air conditioning and a gorgeous view overlooking the water.

The Mara – Animal Kingdom Lodge

Animal Kingdom Lodge is my favorite Walt Disney World resort, and the many dining options available here is a huge reason why. As far as resort-only Quick Service locations go, The Mara has to be ranked among the best. With an African twist on classic fare, as well as some delightful shrimp, beef, or vegetable bowls, there are a ton of healthy, unique options available here. The Mara also has some of the best grab-and-go treats, like the resort’s famous Zebra Domes (chocolate mousse baked with Amarula cream liquor-coated white chocolate drizzled with chocolate stripes and chocolate shavings) as well as a refreshing Pineapple-Orange-Guava (POG) Frozen Slush. Animal Kingdom Lodge is fairly “out of the way” and I left this off my Top 5 list because it’s not easily accessible to all guests – perhaps that actually makes it an even better choice, though.

This list obviously does not (and cannot) cover every single “top” Quick Service location on property. Walt Disney World’s website lists 132 dining options when filtering to show only Quick Service restaurants. (Yes, you read that correctly. That’s in addition to 134 table service restaurants and doesn’t account for snack locations.) There are still so many great eateries that I have yet to try – especially some locations at Disney Springs like The Basket at Wine Bar George and the fairly new location, EET by Maneet. I suppose it’s time to start planning my next trip!

Are you re-thinking your daily Table Service dining reservations for your upcoming trip, now that you know about all of these amazing Quick Service options? Wondering if the Disney Quick Service Dining Plan is a good fit for your vacation? Let’s map out the menus for your next Magical Quest today!