Designing Main Street USA - Victoria's Home Style Restaurant

Victoria's Home Style Restaurant was intended to be like a visit to your grandmother's boarding house. Walt Disney Imagineer, Eddie Sotto (Show Producer Main Street USA at Disneyland Paris), tried to think of it as a Midwestern Victorian home of the time.

It was divided into five rooms. The one with the organ in it is the living room.

Then we have the glass conservatory with the birdcages...

The hall

The kitchen (counter)

and the intimate dining room.

The bedrooms are supposed to be located on the upper floor. If you stand long enough outside of Victoria's you'll hear one of the renters upstairs taking a shower and perhaps turning up the heat a little too high. This interrupts his annoying shower singing with some yelps of pain. In reality, an employee restaurant can be found up there.

Mister Eddie Sotto and his team made great effort to have all of the interiors of Main Street have a contrast with one another. Victoria's Home Style Restaurant is no exception. Next door, the Gibson Girl Ice Cream Parlor was a very light pink, white and marble palette. Victoria's is much more homey, unsophisticated and a bit darker.

The romantic Victorian sense of color and proportion was inspired by Disney films 'Summer Magic', 'Pollyanna', 'The Happiest Millionaire' and 'Lady and the Tramp'.

The most notable part of the decor is the wallpaper. When the finance people of Euro Disney said that the company could afford no more wood moldings and plaster freezes, mister Eddie Sotto asked if his team could have wallpaper. They said "Sure! as much as you want". Therefore wallpaper has been used frequent throughout Main Street USA. The paper is a faithful reproduction of original American designs.

Walt Disney Imagineering exposed the power cables on the walls as it was done back in Victorian times to simulate the electric light had just been introduced into the house.

Victoria's Home Style Restaurant features lots of American stained glass windows. This was typical for homes of this scale in the Victorian era.

American stained glass is made by combining pieces of glass, not by painting on the glass as in European church windows.

The piece of furniture behind the counter was designed to hide the modern kitchen equipment and make you feel like you are in a kitchen of a century ago. Its cabinets with perforated holes are called 'pie safes'. The pie safe was used for centuries to store cakes, pies, and other sweets away from flies and other pests.

The interior decor of the living and dining room was meant to remind people of the eclectic tastes their grandparents had. It features a collection of (uniquely American) knick knacks and souvenirs of someone who would live into their eighties.

The organ plays sheet music that recalls some of the patriotism of Abraham Lincoln.

The intimate dining room has a special ceiling. Its design is inspired by the work of Mister William Morris, one of the most influential voices in Victorian art and architecture.

The facade of the Victoria's Home Style Restaurant was reused from Main Street USA at the Walt Disney World property in Orlando.

The gas lamps installed around the entrance sign, in the arcades and along Main Street USA contribute to both story and experience.

Main Street USA is all about a small town in the midst of changes in technology, from gas lights to the new electric, from horses to gasoline powered cars,... Furthermore, in a cold climate, it is important to have elements (like gas lamps) that make the street look inviting and warm to the guest.