With 200+ million dollar productions oiling the family entertainment machine that the Walt Disney Company has evolved into, it isn’t easy to imagine that most iconic films were sketched on a cocktail napkin.
That’s right—the Roy E. Animation building may have housed some high-quality Disney brainstorming. Still, it’s not where Walt Disney and the original Imagineers dreamed up the magic that sparked a revolution. The foundational pieces that formed animated artifacts like “Steamboat Willy” and concepts like Primeval World were puzzled through in Table 31.
Tam as Old as Time
A fixture in Disney history gets splashed with gin martinis and au jus regularly in LA. Tucked in one of LA’s oldest restaurants, the Tam O’Shanter is the emblematic table where Walt and Roy Disney collaborated (and enjoyed a succulent steak).
According to SF Gate, the eatery serving Scottish and English pub fare since 1922 was the mecca for Mickey Mouse sketches. A year after Tam’s opening in October 1923, “The Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio” was established in the same Los Feliz neighborhood. Nearby Silver Lake was home to the renamed Walt Disney Studios until 1940 when the company moved over to Burbank.
With a scarce budget and abundant ideas, Disney and his animators would dine at the Tam O’Shanter for lunch almost daily, earning it the nickname “the Disney Studios commissary.” Immortalized with a plaque, SF Gate reported the consistent dining spot frequented by the Disney crew now reads:
This was a favorite spot of Walt Disney and his Imagineers.
How to Dine Like Disney
The plaque isn’t the only marker commemorating Walt Disney and his team. Etched on the table are doodles of a stegosaurus and a Tyrannosaurus rex standing before a volcano. The drawing is believed to be an early concept of the Primeval World section of Disneyland Railroad. With a decades-long relationship, the Imagineers grew close to the owners, Lawrence Frank and Walter Van de Kamp.
To show gratitude for their restaurant hosting countless unofficial meetings, John Hench, Imagineer who worked on Fantasia (1940), among other iconic works, gifted the owners an original sketch of Disney characters in Scottish garb, signed:
Walt Disney and staff, 1958.
While the sketch is featured in the lobby, artwork by Walt Disney Imagineering, gifted to the restaurant for 100 years of hosting, is featured above Walt’s iconic table.
If you sit at Table 31, it’s only appropriate to dine like Disney. According to SF Gate, Walt typically ordered their burgers, although the spot is famous for prime rib and Yorkshire pudding. A cocktail named for the renowned table also features rye and jasmine. In addition to the dining, Walt had a favorite component of Tam O’Shanter’s: the patio.
According to the Los Angeles Conservancy, Walt requested the restaurant cover the patio so he could access it year-round. Lawry’s President, the company established by Tam O’Shanter’s original owner Lawrence Frank, Tifanny Stith, told the Los Angeles Conservancy another famous tidbit about the Imagineering crew:
A lot of that early Disney animation work was done on cocktail napkins sitting around on the patio
Where Fairytales Were Born
It’s no surprise that Walt Disney loved a storybook look, and that’s precisely the aesthetic of the Tam O’Shanter. The original architecture of the restaurant reflected Walt Disney’s style in his Los Feliz home with turrets, dark-wood beams, and a thatched roof.
Similarly, Snow White’s cottages shared the iconic style. Designed by Ben Sherwood in 1921, the Hyperion Avenue buildings were home to some of Disney’s first animators. As legend has it, Disney’s first feature film, released widely in 1938, was partly inspired by the fairytale features shared by Walt’s favorite structures.
If you believe in Disney’s magic, you might bet that the Tam O’Shanter had a hand in Walt Disney Animation Studios’ rise to fame.
