Mama Melrose

[almandot]

So what the heck's up with Mama Melrose? I love the restaurant, the food's great. It puts the current Italy restaurant to shame (though that isn't hard considering how bad Italy is right now. Let's put veal in everything and charge Disney prices for pasta with ragu on it!).

But the music they play in it.. did they basically just take DCA's sunshine plaza loop and throw in 2 stereotypical italian restaurant songs? (that's amore, and another one i forget ) I mean I get the streets in Hollywood Studios are mostly los angeles themed (though streets of america where it's situated has new york street and san francisco street), and Melrose is a play on Melrose place or something in LA.. but does that really call for the generic California soundtrack like that? Italian restaurants in CA certainly don't go playing beach boys and dean martin california songs just because they're in that state. Maybe DHS would've been better suited just buying a copy of Olive Garden's background music or something =P

And what's up with the description on the WDW website?

Mama Melrose's Ristorante Italiano in Disney's Hollywood Studios theme park is a casual and colorful Italian restaurant that offers Italian favorites like pizzas baked in a brick oven. Lunch and dinner are served in a setting inspired by scenes from Disney's classic animated film Lady and the Tramp.

Is the setting inspired by that? I mean maybe it is to the extent they were designing an Italian restaurant but I don't recognize any particular similarities. Feels like they just copied Tony's description (which only mentions lady and the tramp in smaller print than melrose does oddly enough) and changed some verbage.

 

[SeaCastle]

This is one of my favorite WDW restaurants. Being from the NE, my standards are pretty high when it comes to Italian food, and Disney surprised me with Mama Melrose. But that's besides the point.

Where does this BGM play? I didn't eat there after I started paying attention to park music. But what you reported (unpleasantly) surprised me. I don't understand how this relates to California in the slightest. They should be playing that loop in the bathrooms at California Pizza Kitchen chain restaurants, not something like this. I share your frustration with this loop. Looks like I won't be eating at Mama Melrose's again.

 

[almandot]

well i plan to continue eating there when I get the chance and can afford to splurge, in fact i'm having leftovers tonight . I can ignore the music, or at least listen in humor to it, but it's so out of place and odd to me.

 

[freedomnoise13]

This was posted in another forum. These are the tracks you heard? Peculiar music choice...

DCA's Sunshine Plaza

1. California Dreamin' - The Mamas & The Papas
2. California, Here I Come - Al Jolson
3. California Sun - The Rivieras
4. Avalon - Natalie Cole
5. Little Old Lady from Pasadena - Jan & Dean
6. San Fernando Valley - Bing Crosby
7. Surf City - Jan & Dean
8. If You're Going to San Francisco - Scott McKenzie
9. Hooray for Hollywood - Great Movie Ride
10. Route 66 - Natalie Cole
11. Do You Know the Way to San Jose? - Dionne Warwick
12. California Girls - Beach Boys
13. I Love LA - Randy Newman
14. Hollywood Nights - Bob Seger
15. Surfin' USA - Beach Boys
16. San Francisco Bay - Peter, Paul and Mary
17. 26 Miles (Santa Catalina) - The Four Preps

 

[Horizons]

I also thought the BGM was rather strange. I remember hearing the following songs:

California - Frank Sinatra
California Here I Come - Al Jolson
That's Amore - Dean Martin
I Love LA
Walk of Life :wacko:
It Never Rains in Southern California
California Dreamin'
California Girls
I Left My Heart in San Francisco

Not a complete list, but I've never had a desire to make a full, accurate, playlist for this BGM.

 

[almandot]

ya, the track list for sunshine plaza is pretty straightforward and well known i wasn't trying to figure out what it was, just commenting on those kinds of songs being used (and sunshine plaza is where they're best known for being used, and it's pretty much the same collection so you'd know what i was talking about).