Gerardo “Jerry” Quijada Gonzalez is the Chef de Cuisine at Be Our Guest in Magic Kingdom.
He runs the kitchen inside Beast's Castle at Magic Kingdom.
He started at Walt Disney World as a College Program kid at EPCOT's Mexico Pavilion more than twenty years ago.
Some context.
Almost nobody does that. The International College Program is built as a season, not a career. Young people from the World Showcase countries come to work in their own pavilion for a few months, then head home to finish school. That is the design. The overwhelming majority never work for Disney again.
Jerry went home, too. Back to Mexico, finished college, built a real culinary career there. Successful. Stable.
And the idea of going back to Disney just would not leave him alone.
So He Gave It All Up
He and his family packed their entire lives into four suitcases and moved to Central Florida.
Four suitcases. A whole family. Leaving an established career behind on a maybe.
And Then Nobody Hired Him
Here is the part of this story that actually matters.
He was not discovered. No one spotted his talent. Nobody opened a door for him.
He applied dozens of times. Over years.
When Disney finally said yes in 2016, it was for a sous chef job.
Not a head chef role. Not a prestige posting. Sous chef, starting over, in a company where the person next to you might have been there fifteen years.
That is what moving up at Disney actually looks like, and anybody dreaming about it should read that paragraph twice.
Ten More Years of Grinding
From 2016 forward, Jerry worked across multiple Walt Disney World dining locations and helped open new restaurant experiences while climbing through Disney culinary leadership.
A decade. One posting at a time. Inside an organization running hundreds of kitchens.
Then he got Be Our Guest.
That Kitchen Is Not a Reward. It Is a Job.
People hear Chef de Cuisine at Be Our Guest and picture something elegant. Plating delicate things in a quiet castle.
Reality check.
Be Our Guest is one of the highest-volume table service restaurants at Walt Disney World. It sits inside the most visited theme park on the planet. It serves across the Grand Ballroom, the West Wing, and the Rose Gallery. And it is one of the hardest reservations on property, which means it runs essentially full every single day it is open.
That is not a prestige posting. That is a logistics operation with a chef's title stapled to it.
His Leadership Thing Is Genuinely Unusual
Jerry does not just hand down orders. He pushes his cast members to bring their own ideas, their own techniques, and their own cultural traditions into the kitchen. His belief is that the best food comes from people who actually feel ownership over what they are making.
Now think about where he is doing that.
Disney culinary is built on consistency. The same dish, identical, across thousands of covers, because somebody who loved it in 2024 is expecting the exact same plate in 2026. Standardization is not a limitation of that system. Standardization is the entire system.
Carving out room for personal contribution inside that machine is a real choice, and it is not a comfortable one. It means a leader absorbing extra complexity so his team can actually put themselves into the work.
Where He Got It
Childhood in Mexico, where food was never just food.
Family meals pulled people together. Recipes hauled memories from one generation to the next. Cooking was how you said you loved somebody.
His mother was his biggest influence, teaching him to cook and teaching him why any of it mattered.
He is also quick to credit his wife, his kids, his fellow cast members, and Disney leaders. He is clear he did not do this by himself.
Honestly, Perfect Restaurant for Him
Be Our Guest exists because of an invitation. The story behind it is about somebody isolated who gets transformed by finally learning how to welcome other people in.
A chef whose whole philosophy is handing his team ownership belongs in that building.
What This Really Proves
Climbing at Disney is brutal. Huge company, huge competition, and plenty of genuinely talented cast members spend entire careers without landing a role like this.
Jerry's story does not prove the dream is easy.
It proves the dream is possible. Over twenty years. Through a pile of rejections. By starting way lower than you wanted to and refusing to stop.
Less magical than the castle makes it sound. A lot more useful.
Source: Disney's profile of Chef de Cuisine Gerardo Quijada Gonzalez at Be Our Guest Restaurant.
