Disney’s NEW Country Bear-Themed Restaurant Has Opened EARLY

The BBQ is open!

A highly-anticipated new restaurant just soft-opened at Disneyland! The brand-new version of the Hungry Bear — now known as the Hungry Bear Barbecue Jamboree and themed to the Country Bears — unexpectedly opened its doors at the “Happiest Place on Earth”, and we were there!

As part of the upcoming refurbishment of Critter Country into Bayou Country that’s officially opening next month, the Hungry Bear Barbecue Jamboree is scheduled to open fully on October 25th. However, the restaurant engaged in an unadvertised soft opening the day before.

The newly refurbished space is decked out in Country Bear theming, which befits its new backstory as the bear’s home after a long world tour.

Most of the attraction’s iconic characters are here, marking their return to Disneyland for the first time in 20 years.

Portraits of the characters adorn the walls of the new space.

The restaurant’s new BBQ menu was available, and large crowds were flocking in.

We sampled the pulled pork-loaded fries and the strawberry pickle lemonade.

We found theSparkling strawberry pickle lemonade ($7.49) to be sweet, refreshing, and tangy! The concoction of Simply Lemonade®, Minute Maid Strawberry Smoothie, flavors of Lime, Sprite, pickle juice and a pickle spear first hit us with a refreshing strawberry lemonade flavor. Then came a bit of tangy pickle flavor from the spear and pickle juice. The Sprite added the carbonated/sparkling element but the taste pretty much blended with the lemonade and lime juice. It says strawberry smoothie but I didn’t get any smoothie texture however the sweet and fresh strawberry was definitely there! The strawberry didn’t taste artificial at all. This perfect to sit and relax with on a hot day.

As for the loaded fries, this $14.99 dish features smoked pulled pork, queso sauce, pickled red onions, pickled jalapeños, cilantro and scallions. We found that the “smoked” pulled pork didn’t have much of a smoked flavor but it was still quite tasty and tender, with a sweet flavor from the sauce, which reminded us of a brown sugar bbq sauce. The fries themselves didn’t have much of their own flavor, and mainly soaked up the cheese sauce and bbq sauce from the pork. The queso sauce had a creamy texture and the flavor went well with both the sweet bbq pork and the jalapeños.  We though the red onions and scallions didn’t do much other than add a crunch while the jalapeños add a bit of spice if you choose to eat them.

Disneyland guests were surprised with a soft-opening of the newly refurbished Hungry Bear Barbecue Jamboree Restaurant. Stay tuned to AllEars for more coverage of Disneyland’s newest additions.

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Are you excited for the new Hungry Bear? Let us know in the comments below.