In case you haven’t heard already, Cape May Café is a hot topic in Disney World right now.

This restaurant is located at Disney’s Beach Club Resort, and it very recently brought back buffets for both breakfast and dinner! We’ve already brought you a full review for the returning breakfast buffet, so now we’re heading back to this spot for dinner. It’s got all kinds of options for seafood lovers and landlubbers alike, but there’s one very important item that’s MISSING from that buffet line.

We don’t want to keep you on the edge of your seat for too long, but we need to start out with some general info about this restaurant for context before we dive into why we’re so bummed.

We already mentioned that you’ll find Cape May Café at Disney’s Beach Club Resort, which is a Deluxe-style hotel located near EPCOT. So it’s not too difficult to get to this location if you’re spending the day in EPCOT or you’re close to a Skyliner station. (Beach Club isn’t on the Skyliner’s route, but it’s not a long walk from the EPCOT Skyliner station.)

When Cape May Café reopened last year, the buffets did not return with it. Both breakfast and dinner were served as all-you-can-eat family-style meals. Many of the options were the same as before (salad, seafood, roasted beef, etc.), but the server would bring you dishes of the food instead of you getting up to serve yourself.

Now, however, the buffets have officially returned for breakfast and dinner, and we’re heading inside to see what’s different about this spot!

Atmosphere

Since it’s at the Beach Club Resort, Cape May Café holds true to that seaside theme. You’ll see pictures on the walls of beach views…

…as well as decorations themed after seaside activities. We love the colorful umbrellas!

A game of croquet, anyone?

And don’t forget to check out the sandcastle art inside this restaurant as well.

There are standard tables and chairs as well as some booths.

The restaurant is one large dining room with a few different sections, and the buffet area is in the middle.

Although this spot has some luxurious menu items and mid-range prices, the decor and atmosphere make it feel like a more casual dining experience.

Now let’s get into the eats!

Eats

Menu

The menu at Cape May Café includes a little something for everyone. You’ll pay one set price, and it covers everything at the buffet as well as soft drinks, coffee, and tea. The cost is $42 for adults and $25 for children (ages 9 and under).

If you’d like to add a specialty drink to your meal, there’s a selection of mocktails…

…and a LONG list of cocktails.

You can also choose from a variety of beers, hard ciders, and hard seltzers…

…white and sparkling wines…

…and red and rosé wines.

Note that there are a few food options that are available as extra add-ons (not included in the price of the buffet). We’ll get to those in the next section.

Food

OK, we’re finally getting into why people are so upset with Cape May Café. One of our favorite items on the buffet line before this spot closed in 2020 was the unlimited snow crab legs. Yes, they were actually unlimited! These were included in the price of the buffet, and it was one of the main reasons we enjoyed this restaurant.

When the café reopened in 2021, the crab legs were available as an add-on. You could get 1 lb of crab legs for an additional $29.99. The cost of the meal did go down (it’s $42 now instead of $55), but if you really took advantage of those endless crab legs, that didn’t quite make up for the loss.

Paying extra for the (limited) crab legs is still the case now, even though the rest of the buffet is back to normal. Yes, we are upset about it. But if you want to get some of these delicious crab legs, you’ll have to fork over the $29, and your server will bring them out separately in a bucket (with some melted butter).

You can also pay extra for a whole lobster, which costs an additional $42. This addition is also delicious, but it also doubles the price of a normal adult meal. So it’s a great choice if you’re looking to splurge a little on some high-quality seafood!

Enough about our crab leg woes. Let’s take a walk down the buffet line to see the rest of the food here.

To start out, there are some Porter House rolls and cornbread. We asked our server for butter to go with them since we didn’t see any on the buffet line. The rolls tasted great, but ours was a little bit dry. It wasn’t bad at all, just a little bit crumbly (especially when we were spreading butter on it).

There was also a pub cheese spread near the bread, which goes great with those rolls. We had some of that spread on our roll, and it was delicious! The cheese was creamy, and it had a bit of a kick. This is a great option if you’re looking for something a little more exciting than butter for your roll.

The salads section had Caesar Salad, Chipotle Ranch Salad, and a Seasonal Salad.

We tried some of the Caesar, which was good! It was basically just a normal Caeser salad — nothing too crazy or special about it. But if you’re looking for a fresh and tasty salad option, we don’t think you’ll be mad about this one (although you might not be blown away by it either). The dressing had more of a vinegar base than a creamy base, but it tasted fine to us. And the lettuce was nice and crisp, not at all wilted.

There was also Seafood Pasta Salad…

…fruit…

…and Ambrosia Salad. Note that the Ambrosia Salad does contain almonds.

You can also choose some Clam Chowder…

…and Vegetable Soup.

There’s also a carving station with Roasted Beef, which the Cast Member will carve for you right there. The cut that we had was excellent. The meat was high-quality, and it was cooked very well.

Moving down the line, there was Peel-and-Eat Shrimp…

…Mussels and Clams…

…and Corn as part of the seafood boil section. You can also get Paella, Fried Polluck, Mashed Potatoes, Chicken…

…Pizza…

…and the Sustainable Catch of the Day, which was Salmon when we ate here.

We tried a little bit of everything, and it all tasted very fresh! We enjoyed the seafood especially, and none of it had an overly fishy taste. We also were impressed that nothing had a rubbery texture from sitting out under the heat lamps in the buffet. In general, this is not your run-of-the-mill seafood buffet. The quality is much better, and we love the variety of options.

The wide variety makes it easy to eat here with a large group of people who all have different tastes. You can indulge in clams and mussels galore or avoid the seafood altogether and opt for pizza and chicken instead. We will note that the chicken nuggets were missing from the kids’ table, which might be a dealbreaker for some little ones. But this could be different during your visit.

Our reporter noted that almost everything tasted just a little bit too salty for their taste. From the fish to the potatoes, there was a little more salt in most of the food than what they would normally prefer. That’s a personal preference, so you might find it to be totally fine.

We did add the snow crab legs onto our meal for an extra $29.99. You get 1 pound, and they’re brought out separately. These were as delicious as we remembered! They’re super easy to break, and you get a good bit of meat inside each one.

You are limited to 1 pound, which felt like quite a bit less than what we usually ate when they were unlimited (especially if you’re sharing with a few people).

Having the crab legs separately made us realize that the rest of the food in this buffet is really just OK. Everything tasted good, and it was all fresh. But the star of the show is really those crab legs! So when they’re not included, the emphasis goes on the other food here, and none of it really wows us.

For dessert, there are quite a few options! At the pastry table, there are the famous Oreo BonBons (which are ALWAYS a good idea)…

…Strawberry Layer Cake…

…50th Anniversary Boston Cream Tarts and Lemon Curd…

…Gluten-Free Mickey Domes…

…and a variety of cookies and mini cupcakes.

But our favorite dessert (and by far the best thing we ate all night) was the Bread Pudding. All the rest of the desserts were fine (and those Oreo BonBons were delicious as always), but the bread pudding was warm, gooey, and incredible.

It had a cinnamon crumb cake-type topping, and we’re pretty sure there were some apples inside it. We got one bite with a chunk of apple, but there weren’t any other apples in the serving we had.

There’s a vanilla custard served with this dessert, and it was very tasty. Our only complaint is that the custard was served cold instead of warm. We think this dessert could be even better if that sauce were kept warm as well.

This dessert was VERY popular at the buffet. The Cast Members kept bringing more out, and we kept trying to get pictures of a fresh dish so you could see what it looks like whole, but someone literally beat us to the pudding every time because so many people wanted to try some.

Nosh or Not

Have a day at the beach at Cape May Café if you:

• love seafood and want a variety of fresh options
• are still in love with those snow crab legs and are willing to spend $30 extra for just one more taste.
• are traveling with a large party of people with very different tastes. There was a little bit of everything here, so we think most people will be able to find something they like.

Pack up your beach umbrella and head elsewhere if you:

• are vegan. To put it simply, there wasn’t really anything on the buffet for plant-based eaters except for corn and potatoes (and the potatoes might have even been cooked with butter).
• are looking for exciting and unique food. Everything here tasted good, but nothing really wowed us. EPCOT is a short walk away, and you can find a lot of more exciting food in World Showcase!
• have a strong aversion to seafood. Although there’s a great variety of food here, if no one in your party loves seafood, this is probably a waste of a meal. Head to a restaurant with more land-based options to get the best bang for your buck.

Overall

In general, we enjoyed our meal at Cape May Café, but we have to say that there’s better out there in Disney World. At the risk of sounding obsessive, we’ve got to say that the real problem is that those snow crab legs are not included or unlimited anymore. They were the best part of this spot, and none of the other food on the buffet can really live up to them.

Our server seemed a little bit overwhelmed when we visited, but that was probably because of all the changes happening at the restaurant. Usually, the service here is pretty efficient. That being said, our server was still very kind and helpful.

Unless you’re staying at a nearby EPCOT resort, we don’t really recommend this restaurant for dinner. It’s probably not worth going too far out of your way for, especially with so many other great restaurants in EPCOT.

Keep following DFB for more reviews of all the food in Disney World!

Click here to see our full review of the breakfast buffet at Cape May Café.

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Have you been to the dinner buffet at Cape May Café? Tell us what you thought in the comments!

The post REVIEW: Is This Disney World Buffet Worth It Without the Endless Crab Legs?! first appeared on the disney food blog.