The Beak and Barrel Is a Fantastic New Themed Bar Inside the Magic Kingdom

By Garrett Martin | August 26, 2025 | 4:43pm

Theme Parks Features the beak and barrel

The Beak and Barrel Is a Fantastic New Themed Bar Inside the Magic Kingdom

When Disney’s Imagineers designed the Pirates of the Caribbean attraction back in the 1960s, they made a crucial decision that guaranteed the ride would remain timeless. Instead of giving the nominally story-based ride a rigidly defined plot with specific characters, they shot for vibes.

The Pirates ride isn’t necessarily a swashbuckling adventure like the movies that borrowed its name decades later. It’s an evocative depiction of pirates plundering a Caribbean port town, and a celebration of the pure destructive force of out-of-control partying. With its overlapping dialogue, vignette-style structure, and passive observer POV, it has far more in common with the shaggy, novelistic films Robert Altman would make in the 1970s than the big budget blockbusters Johnny Depp starred in 30 years later. And although a handful of Jack Sparrow animatronics and the slightest semblance of a story were shoehorned into the ride after those movies’ success, it’s still more of a suggestion than the kind of plot-driven direction theme parks have moved towards. Yes, Sparrow is there amid the chaos, apparently trying to find a map to some kind of treasure, but he’s just one pirate out of dozens partying this town into the ground.

What does any self-respecting pirate need to fuel their city-leveling revels? Rum, of course. And although the current version of Pirates imagines an odd scenario where these seafaring scoundrels auction rum off to one another instead of, you know, fighting over it, the best place to get rum remains a bar. And so The Beak and Barrel, the latest addition to Adventureland at the Magic Kingdom in Orlando, will open later this week to serve hale and hearty pirate fare to the guests of Disney World, with or without a few shots of rum. It’ll also tap into the same timeless, vivid imagining of pirate life that has entertained Pirates of the Caribbean riders for almost 60 years. The drinks are strong in The Beak and Barrel, but crucially, so are the vibes.

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The Beak and Barrel

The first thing you’ll notice when you enter The Beak and Barrel, which is located right next to the Pirates attraction in Adventureland, is how warm and autumnal everything is. It’s the same mix of earth tones and fiery glow found in the ride—browns and tans cast with the flickering of torches and candle light, like you’ve stepped off the boat and right into the burning town. The main room houses two long communal tables, ample counter seating around its walls, and a big wooden bar in front of liquor shelves that look like the quarters of an old ship. No, your eyes (or eye—this is a pirate’s bar, after all) aren’t deceiving you; the center piece of the bar is a collection of shelves that together resemble a giant skull, much like the Skull Rock that Captain Hook called home and that used to loom over Fantasyland in Disneyland.

That’s just one of two rooms inside The Beak and Barrel. Off to the left from the entrance is a small, semi-secluded space called the Map Room; its one large table can serve several guests at once, and one portion of the table is lowered in order to accommodate guests in wheelchairs. On the walls are various nautical maps and mapmaking tools. On the other side of the main room is the Captain’s Quarters, which has a number of tables for small groups; this room is packed full of curios and momentos of our unseen captain’s adventures, with every table guaranteed its own fascinating little display to pore over. There’s also a fireplace in the Captain’s Quarters, with seating for two in front; on its mantel are a collection of miniature ships in bottles, and if you’re guessing that a miniature ship in a bottle in a Disney bar might turn into something more dramatic and magical, you wouldn’t be off base. Yes, at Disney World, bottles are now battlefields. But more on that in a bit.

If you’ve ever been to Oga’s Cantina in Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge, you’ll be familiar with how The Beak and Barrel works. First off you’ll want to make a reservation weeks before your visit to the Magic Kingdom; you’ve been able to make reservations on the Disney World app for a while and every day gets packed up the instant it becomes available. (Inevitably it’ll become at least a little easier to get a reservation, and potentially even become something you can get on a walk-up list for on the day of your trip, but that could literally take years.) When you arrive for your reservation a pirate host will take you to a table or counter top, and like at Oga’s you don’t really get much of a say in where you’re seated. At that point you’ll have 45 minutes to drink its alcoholic and non-alcoholic cocktails, munch on its small selection of snacks, and, most importantly, immerse yourself in this gloriously designed space. You’re guaranteed to see a number of show elements during any 45 minute shift, such as songs and whimsical banter between the pirate staffers, a naval battle between the bottled ships on the mantel, and—destined to be most popular—an appearance from Rummy, the animatronic parrot first mate who lives above the bar. After 45 minutes, one of The Beak and Barrel’s pirate employees will gently remind you that it’s time to return to Adventureland and leave the bar.

45 minutes is a good amount of time to slip out of the Florida heat and recharge with a drink or two. Any longer than that and you’d be wasting your theme park day. You’ll also feel like it’s not nearly enough, though, when your stay comes to a quicker-than-anticipated end, and that’s part of the point: The Beak and Barrel is built knowing that many Disney Parks fans will come again and again, as often as they’re able to. That’s why it’s so overloaded with details (including, yes, many references to the ride and the movies) and things to experience: to make every visit feel new and surprising.

The Beak and Barrel does serve food, but it’s not a place you can get a full meal. (You can check out the menu here.) The bill of fare might be small but it’s unusually bold for a theme park; one of the signature dishes, a ceviche called Kraken’s Catch that’s served in a glass, is built around an eye-catching octopus tentacle. The corn griddle cakes are available with or without chipotle-braised chicken, and are probably the heartiest item on the menu. There’s also a selection of chips and dips (called Island Provisions on the menu) that includes blue corn tortilla chips, flatbread pieces, and plantain chips, with salsa, chutney, chimichurri, and a culantro cream dip. I will out myself as a culinary heathen who isn’t interested in octopus unless it’s been fried, and even then remains a little leery; the variety of chips and sauces in Island Provisions make for a great snack, though, and although we didn’t get to try the corn griddle cakes, the one on display certainly looked tempting.

Like the pirates of the ride, I was mostly interested in one thing: booze. The Beak and Barrel’s signature cocktails run the gamut of tropical liquors, with three rum drinks, a tequila-based margarita (called, of course, the Salty Seas mARRRgarita), and a banana-y mezcal concoction. There’s also a spicy take on the old fashioned for bourbon heads and a drink called the Port of Call that seems like it might be the same drink served at the Clover Club in New York—it’s gin, port, lemon juice, cranberry, and spice. During our visit we were served Plunderer’s Punch, which is black spiced rum with blackberry, lime and vanilla served in an impressively grisly skull mug (available for purchase, of course). There’s also wine and beer on the menu (including original beers from Victory Brewing and Wicked Weed) and straight pours of rum. And for all the kids and non-drinkers out there, the two signature mocktails are the Cursed Treasure, which is like a cookies and cream drink that’s not quite as thick as a milkshake but at least headed in that direction, and the Treasure Trove, an ube, lemon and coconut drink that also comes with a handful of sweet treats. The Beak and Barrel’s food and drink offerings might be a little slim, but it’s a well-balanced menu with something for everybody.

If this sounds like a rave review, well, it pretty much is: The Beak and Barrel is fantastic. It does have one notable flaw, unfortunately, and it’s one that will probably leave some guests feeling unsatisfied. Not every seat has a clear, unobstructed view of the bar’s show elements. Rummy the animatronic parrot lives above the bar and comes out at least once every 45 minutes, but if you’re seated in either of the side rooms there’s a good chance you won’t be able to see him unless you stand up and walk towards the main room—and, if the bar is operated the way it was during our preview, you’ll probably have employees telling you to “find your seat” as soon as you start moving around. The battle of the bottled ships is even harder to watch if you aren’t seated within the sightline of the fireplace whose mantel they rest upon.

If you are seated in the Map Room or the Captains’ Quarters, and understandably want to see Rummy or the ships in action, pay close attention to sound and lighting. As soon as either starts to change, get up and walk towards the bar or the fireplace; if you react promptly, you should be able to see either bit of show, even if you have to look over a sea of raised smart phones to do so.

Again, there are so many details packed into The Beak and Barrel’s nooks and crannies that you’ll have something interesting to look at even if you miss these show elements. Rummy, in particular, is being promoted heavily as part of the experience, though, so it’s a little surprising he can be a bit hard to actually see. Compare it, again, to Oga’s: DJ Rex, the animatronic droid who keeps the music pumping in the cantina, is visible from pretty much every vantage point inside. Rex is large, always doing something, and in a prominent position within easy sight of almost every seat. Rummy seems to have a bit of stage fright, only coming out intermittently, and not in plain sight of a large number of the bar’s tables. You absolutely don’t need to see Rummy to have a great time at The Beak and Barrel, but if you’re going in hopes of seeing a cool robot parrot in action, know that there’s a chance you’ll miss it entirely.

You shouldn’t miss The Beak and Barrel, though. It’s a beautiful, exciting space that brings what has become Disney Imagineering’s greatest strength into the original Florida theme park for the first time. It’ll be the first bar in the Magic Kingdom, gracing the park with the kind of immaculately themed watering hole we’ve long enjoyed on Disney cruise ships, inside hotels, and throughout the parks of Walt Disney World.

For most of its 54 year history you couldn’t get a drink in the Magic Kingdom. That changed with the 2012 opening of Be Our Guest, a restaurant set in a recreation of Beauty & the Beast’s ballroom. Beer, wine and cocktails gradually started appearing on the menus of the park’s other table-service restaurants, but Disney has remained a little more conservative about alcohol in this park than the other three at Disney World. You still can’t get a drink at a quick service location in the Magic Kingdom, and you can’t carry alcohol around the park. And until The Beak and Barrel, there was never a genuine bar inside the park; now that there is one, well, no puns intended, but the bar’s been set incredibly high for any more that might be on the way. Hopefully there will be more on the way; every land at the Magic Kingdom could easily support an amazing themed and immersive bar of its own. The demand is high for both adult drinks and new immersive experiences at Disney World, and ideally The Beak and Barrel will only be the first pub to take root inside its original theme park.

For more photos of The Beak and Barrel, click here.

Editor-in-chief Garrett Martin writes about videogames, theme parks, pinball, travel, and more. You can also find him on Blue Sky.