Theme parks have long had a checkered reputation when it comes to dining. <\/p>\n
And theme park designer Eddie Sotto once wanted to put an end to such a reputation. \u201cWhy,\u201d Sotto reflected to me in 2023, \u201care we not thinking more holistically as to what we\u2019re putting inside the guest as to what we\u2019re putting in front of the guest?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe old joke is that people don\u2019t expect the food to be any good in an immersive environment,\u201d Sotto said. \u201cI don\u2019t believe that. I believe it should all be good. You\u2019re paying a lot. The opportunity is for it all to be transformative.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sotto, whose outspoken passion for theme park design made him a favorite among Disney\u2019s vast fanbase, died on Dec. 17 in Orange County after a long battle with various heart-related issues, said his wife of 48 years, Deena. He was 67. <\/p>\n
While Sotto\u2019s best-known masterworks are overseas, be it the creation of Main Street, U.S.A., for Disneyland Paris or overseeing the development of the early trackless attraction Pooh\u2019s Hunny Hunt for Tokyo Disneyland, he had a reputation for fighting tirelessly to enhance the theme park experience, pushing for improvements to everything including ride vehicles and the food on guests\u2019 plates. <\/p>\n
In the early \u201990s while working for Walt Disney Imagineering, the company\u2019s secretive arm devoted to theme park experiences, Sotto took it upon himself to hold a chef-led symposium for Imagineers. <\/p>\n
\u201cThey taught us Imagineers a lot about the ritual of dining, and understanding what foods do to you,\u201d he said, describing how theme park dining should go beyond developing a burger with a cute name. <\/p>\n
He was also an early designer on Disneyland\u2019s Indiana Jones Adventure, brought music to Space Mountain and elevated a Los Angeles landmark: He led an interior refresh of the now-shuttered Encounter restaurant at LAX.<\/p>\n
Born in Hollywood on March 14, 1958, and raised in La Mirada and Fullerton, Sotto grew up obsessed with Knott\u2019s Berry Farm and Disneyland. He married Deena, his high school sweetheart, when he was 19. Sotto initially followed in his late father\u2019s early footsteps, working at Sears. His meteoric rise in theme park design would be unheard of today, as Sotto never attended college and was self taught, drafting theme park designs in his down time while selling appliances. <\/p>\n
His hiring at Imagineering caused some debate, says Tony Baxter, the Disney legend who oversaw the creation of such attractions as Big Thunder Mountain, Indiana Jones Adventure, Star Tours and Splash Mountain. Outgoing and driven, Sotto began reaching out to Baxter for advice in the late \u201870s, says Baxter. It would take nearly a decade for Baxter to persuade his superiors to take a chance on Sotto, who was eventually hired by Imagineering in 1986 after stints at Knott\u2019s Berry Farm and the Landmark Entertainment Group. It was at Landmark where he met one of his key mentors, Herb Ryman, a fine artist and longtime concept designer with Imagineering. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Eddie Sotto\u2019s most famed Disney work is the design of Main Street, U.S.A., at Disneyland Paris. <\/p>\n
(Michel Euler \/ Associated Press)<\/p>\n
\u201cFor people in management, they kind of want to see a portfolio of something solid,\u201d Baxter says. \u201cBut for me, it\u2019s what\u2019s going on in someone\u2019s mind. And Eddie\u2019s mind was sharp as a tack.\u201d <\/p>\n
So savvy, believed Baxter, that he was given the task of reimagining Main Street, U.S.A., for a French audience at Disneyland Paris. Sotto\u2019s take on the introductory turn-of-the-century land is widely regarded as its finest, with its grand Victorian-inspired designs diving more deeply into factual American history than its predecessors. Enclosed archways line each side of the street behind the shops. The arcades serve as a shield from Parisian weather but also gave Sotto the opportunity to design installations that focus on the Statue of Liberty, American inventions and the bond between the United States and France. <\/p>\n
The goal, says Baxter, was \u201cto create shops in competition with European architecture.\u201d Tom Morris, a retired Imagineer who worked closely with Sotto, says Sotto\u2019s Main Street possesses \u201can extra layer of storytelling,\u201d adding that Sotto gave the thoroughfare \u201cmore of an opportunity for exploration.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s excessive in the best way possible,\u201d adds Christopher Merritt, a theme park designer and author who worked with Sotto on Pooh\u2019s Hunny Hunt.<\/p>\n
Morris recalled first meeting Sotto when they were teens in the 1970s. Morris jokes that he and Sotto both went to Disneyland \u201cmore than our parents thought was healthy, which was four or five times per year.\u201d Their paths initially crossed at the Anaheim public library, where they went to peruse its Disneyland collection. <\/p>\n
\u201cThere were files and files of photographs and employee newsletters \u2014 all sorts of weird and interesting things,\u201d Morris says. \u201cI always thought I must be the only weirdo who is interested in all of this, but one day there was another person in there and that person was Ed Sotto. That\u2019s where we met, and I was really surprised, actually, that there was someone else afflicted with the same obsession for Disneyland.\u201d<\/p>\n
At Knott\u2019s, Sotto was tasked with reimagining a motorcycle chase ride. Sotto, as recalled in the book \u201cKnott\u2019s Preserved\u201d by Merritt and J. Eric Lynxwiler, took four buttons off a coat and created a mini soapbox car and ran it around a conference table as if it were a Matchbox toy. This would lead to the creation of the Wacky Soap Box Racers, in which the makeshift cars would careen through painted facades of cartoon-ish animals cheering on the guests. The attraction emphasized silliness, taking riders into \u201cCatnip Junction\u201d and through rat-infested sewers.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Eddie Sotto in 2015. In his 13-plus years at Imagineering, the designer touched multiple Disneyland attractions. <\/p>\n
(Courtesy of Deena Sotto)<\/p>\n
\u201cHe told me that everyone backed away from the project because he was the new kid,\u201d says Merritt. \u201cHe got literally no budget. There was an end scene in a fireworks factory and they were making bombs out of rubber beach balls that they spray painted black. There were doing this by hand. And it\u2019s a big hit.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sotto in his 13-plus years at Imagineering had an influence on Disneyland. As a concept designer on Indiana Jones Adventure, Sotto, says Baxter, conceived the idea in which the ride vehicles would appear to go through one of three different doors, an illusion accomplished by a rotating wall. Repeat visitors would sense as if the car was moving on an alternate track. Today, the walls no longer move and the effect is attempted via projection technology. \u201cI felt my rolling ball [at the ride\u2019s end] and Eddie\u2019s choice room were the two things that really made the ride unique in terms of, \u2018Wow, how did they do that?\u2019\u201d Baxter says. <\/p>\n
Sotto ascended quickly while at Imagineering, rising to the position of senior vice president, concept design.<\/p>\n
\u201cEddie just kept sketching and drawing,\u201d Morris says. \u201cHe was inspired by Herb Ryman and that was Herb\u2019s motto: \u2018Just keep drawing.\u2019 I just think when you have a lot of quick sketching acuity, word gets out. People know. This is someone you want on your team, especially in the early stages, to help concept, bring forth and pitch an idea.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the mid-\u201990s, Sotto realized a dream of many an Imagineer, particularly Morris, of bringing onboard audio onto a roller coaster, specifically Disneyland\u2019s Space Mountain. Today, it\u2019s commonplace for coasters to have synced music or sound effects, but Morris says there were technical hurdles that needed to be solved, most notably related to the engineering of the speaker sets on individual cars. <\/p>\n
Sotto pushed it through, but not without some personal touches. An avid fan of rock \u2018n\u2019 roll, Sotto tapped surf rock guitar legend Dick Dale for a part of the composition, which heavily pulled from Camille Saint-Sa\u00ebns\u2019 \u201cAquarium\u201d section of \u201cThe Carnival of the Animals.\u201d The result was otherworldly, but also rooted in a sound associated with riding the Southern California waves. Dale\u2019s riffs, wrote Sotto on his website<\/a>, \u201cwere to be triggered to compliment each twist, turn and drop of your \u2018rocket.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHe loved Orange County surf guitar music,\u201d says Merritt. \u201cSo he hires Dick Dale for this intergalactic soundtrack for Space Mountain. They did some promotional thing where they put Dick Dale standing on Space Mountain playing his guitar. That\u2019s just the audaciousness of Eddie.\u201d <\/p>\n In fact, Sotto wrote on his site, it was the promise to play atop Space Mountain that sold Dale on the gig. Sotto would leave Imagineering in 1999 to soon after establish his own Laguna Beach-based SottoStudios, but not before getting an opportunity with Imagineering to remodel Encounter at LAX. Sotto\u2019s vision was a space-age bachelor pad, a place, he said in 2023, \u201cwhere George Jetson and Barbarella might meet for a drink,\u201d with lava lamp-inspired pillars and soda fountains modeled in the shape of vintage sci-fi ray guns, complete with sound effects. <\/p>\n A remodel of the interior of LAX restaurant Encounter was one of Eddie Sotto\u2019s career highlights. <\/p>\n (David McNew \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n Sotto long spoke of the restaurant, which closed in 2013, as one of his favorite projects.<\/p>\n \u201cTheme has to go deep,\u201d Sotto said. \u201cIt has be something that\u2019s relevant and exciting to people. I spent weeks putting together 11 hours of music for Encounter. What you were hearing could be a B-side from William Shatner\u2019s space album. Theme has to reward your close inspection at a rich level. That\u2019s why people return.\u201d <\/p>\n SottoStudios over the years was heavily involved in the automobile industry, as Sotto led the design of many car showrooms. Sotto also had a passion for restaurants, and worked on numerous L.A. establishments including John Sedlar\u2019s<\/a> shuttered but acclaimed Rivera.<\/a> Sotto\u2019s career would also take him to Jeff Bezos\u2019 Blue Origin offices<\/a>, for which he designed a Jules Verne-inspired rocketship fireplace that doubles as a lobby meeting space. <\/p>\n And his passion for theme parks never wavered, says Baxter, even as his heart issues worsened. At their monthly lunches, Baxter notes that he and Sotto would continue to brainstorm new Disney attractions or alternative directions to what the company was announcing. Sotto, says Baxter, spent his final few days at Orange\u2019s UCI Medical Center, but was given a room with a view of Disneyland\u2019s fireworks, which he looked forward to watching each evening. Baxter recalled a picture of the two of them eating chili cheese dogs at Disneyland.<\/p>\n \u201cHe sent it to me, and said, \u2018I\u2019m dreaming of a day when we can do this again,\u2019\u201d Baxter says. \u201cThat was just two weeks ago.\u201d <\/p>\n In addition to his wife, Deena, Sotto is survived by their son Brian, daughter Venice and her husband, Rocky. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Theme parks have long had a checkered reputation when it comes to dining. 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