We Ate at Toadstool Cafe, Here’s Our Experience

On our recent trip to California, we were able to visit Universal Studios Hollywood in Hollywood California. While there, we had the opportunity to eat at the very popular new Super Mario themed restaurant, Toadstool Cafe. Check out the details below!

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If you’re planning a trip to Universal Studios Hollywood in the near future, you probably already know about the popularity of the newest attraction, Super Nintendo World, but have you heard about the new restaurant in this Tiny World, Toadstool Cafe?

It turns out, nearly everyone going to Super Nintendo World wants to eat at this very popular restaurant, themed to the cute little Toads that run around Super Mario games.

You might be thinking, “If it’s so popular, how can I get in?”. Great question, I’m here to help! As of the summer and fall of 2023, there are 2 ways you can get into Toadstool Cafe. The first is you can walk in when the restaurant first opens in the morning. Reservation times usually start about an hour into the day, so that first little bit of time, you can walk in without creating a reservation. However, they do not serve breakfast items, so you’ll be eating lunch at 8 or 9 am!

The second way, as I mentioned above, is to create a reservation. The only way to do this is to scan the QR code with your phone’s camera and click the link displayed. The QR code can be found on a sign just outside Super Nintendo World, to the left of the green entrance pipe, and also just outside the restaurant entrance, as seen in the 360 image below.

If you don’t have the ability to scan, or want to scan from anywhere, keep reading for the direct link. You can’t reserve ahead of time, but you can click from anywhere the day of your visit.

Once you scan the QR code, there will be a few selection screens, then a spot to enter your information. Click Book It and you’re good to go! See the quick tutorial below to familiarize yourself with the process!

When your reservation time arrives, they’ll let you enter into the restaurant queue. It’s almost like you’re in a ride queue. The first room you enter has a Mario Band touch point, so be sure to grab some points! Then you’ll enter a room with a snaking queue. This room has some electronic question mark boxes that rotate between menu items. There’s also a bigger screen that gives a window to the kitchen where you can see Toad preparing your lunch!

At the end of the queue, a team member will direct you to 1 of 6 lines where you’ll place your order. You can expect it to take 30-45 minutes from the time you enter the restaurant to the time you order. If everyone knows what they want prior to reaching the order takers, it’ll go a little quicker!

After you order, the restaurant staff will take you to a table. You’ll have your drinks, so walk carefully! Along the walls, you’ll see more windows that let you look out into the Mushroom Kingdom. The scenes are mostly fun, but beware, when Bowser comes through, the screens get darker and the restaurant lights will dim and simulate a storm. Some kids might get nervous or scared. It’ll go back to normal within a minute. These windows are fun to watch while awaiting the arrival of your food, which can also take 30 minutes!

By the time the food arrives, you’ll be plenty hungry for all the delicious items you’ve ordered. Each of the main courses we tried, seen in the pictures above, were all good. The burgers aren’t anything too special, regular restaurant quality products. The Mario Burger adds mushrooms and bacon to give it some extra taste helping the overall quality.

The Mt. Beanpole Cake was just ok for us. Not a whole lot of flavor, even though there was strawberry, vanilla and chocolate cream. Those flavors were non-existent to subtle at best. I mostly just tasted strawberry. If you eat the layers individually, the different flavors stand out a little more.

Inside the question mark box on the kids meal is a coin cookie. Basically a chocolate covered Oreo decorated to look like a coin from the game. For kids, it’s a pretty decent dessert option, though I think my kid would have preferred the Princess Peach cupcake!

Overall, the cafe is cute and fun, definitely some childhood nostalgia for the adults in the room. Just be sure to pack your patience and bring some snacks so you can survive the wait!

You can click here to go straight to the reservation site. As I’m typing this up, the link appeared active sometime between 8:15 and 8:25 am Pacific Time. To start off in the morning, you can only book a time slot for 2:45 pm or earlier. By 8:50 am, all reservation slots were full with the exception of single seats. Though most times after 11 were gone by 8:40. Single slots were booked up by 8:55am. Therefore, whether you are in the land or not, you’ll need to be quick on the draw to grab a time slot.

Do you have plans to visit Universal Studios Hollywood in the near future? Will you be checking out the Toadstool Cafe? Comment below to let us know!

If you’re ready to start exploring a Walt Disney World or Disneyland family vacation, I recommend checking out Undercover Tourist for your ticket options. I’ve already used them twice, once at Disneyland and once at Disney World and will plan to continue comparing their prices with other sites, however I usually come back to UT because they have the best deals and their instructions make it easy to add your tickets to the Disney apps.