\u201cEverything good?\u201d the server asked me. \u201cAre you enjoying your baby dragon?\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
By that point in the evening, I had already watched acts of noble falconry<\/a>, sipped my Royal Knight cocktail and screamed campy screams in support of the Red & Yellow Knight, my champion for the evening. If anything, a bite of baby dragon just seemed like the next logical step at California\u2019s only Medieval Times.<\/p>\n Going to Medieval Times as a grown-ass adult with no kids in tow<\/a> takes a special kind of disposition; one I heartily embrace. To maximize the evening\u2019s potential, I brought a friend who\u2019s of a like mind about immersive entertainment<\/a> (which is just a fancy way of saying we\u2019re both obsessed with the theatrics and heightened reality of theme parks<\/a> and escape rooms). When we walked in and a tunicked squire handed us our red-and-yellow crowns, indicating that we\u2019d be seated in that knight\u2019s section, we eagerly donned those pieces of cardboard.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n We were ready to see some jousting. We were ready to huzzah until we were hoarse. We were ready for Medieval Times.\u00a0<\/p>\n The 70,000-square-foot Orange County arena, not far from Knott\u2019s Berry Farm<\/a>, was filled with more than 1,100 mostly enthusiastic revelers for my sold-out Saturday night show in February.\u00a0The crowd sits in riser-style seating ringed around the dirt-floored main stage, making sure everyone gets a prime view of the action below. A king and queen preside over the two-hour experience, welcoming guests to the realm to watch horses perform challenging dressage maneuvers and knights compete in a joust. (Spoiler: There\u2019s a villain amongst the nobles.)<\/p>\n Knights on horseback are lined up in the arena at Medieval Times Dinner & Tournament, Toronto.<\/p>\n UCG\/Getty Images<\/p>\n Throughout the show, servers bring around a not-at-all medieval dinner that starts with tomato soup and garlic bread, followed by a roasted half-chicken with a large wedge of potato and some corn on the cob, finished with an eclair for dessert. There is no point in waiting for utensils: At Medieval Times, the meal is designed to be eaten with your hands, as the peasants did nearly a millennium ago.\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Make SFGATE a preferred source so your search results prioritize writing by actual people, not AI.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Add Preferred Source<\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n Fascinatingly, the company\u2019s mythology<\/a> is based on actual royalty from 11th-century Spain, the country where the knightly dinner-and-a-show concept first originated some 60-ish years ago.\u00a0Today, Medieval Times operates nine locations in the U.S. and one in Toronto. Its Buena Park location, first opened in 1986, remains the only one in California, and was the second in the country after Orlando, Florida.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Lady Falconer has a bird perched in her hand at Medieval Times in Atlanta, Dec. 16, 2018.<\/p>\n Roberto Machado Noa\/LightRocket\/Getty Images<\/p>\n Today, Medieval Times is experiencing \u2014 forgive me for this \u2014 a renaissance. TikTok has caught on to the kitsch appeal of the experience, inspiring viral videos of the shows and a flurry of experiential coverage in national media. In April 2025,\u00a0Food & Wine<\/a> claimed the dinner theater was \u201cthe best theme restaurant,\u201d period.\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n There, the story described, \u201cscience and nature conspire to produce consistent, uniform, replicable spectacle, five nights a week.\u201d And the writer observed, \u201cIt is the closest one can get to the experience of eating at a Spirit Halloween, I think, by which I mean everything is chaotic and perfunctory in the most charming, human ways possible.\u201d<\/p>\n William Elliot III, 35, assistant head knight and a former magician in Las Vegas, makes a grand entrance as the Red Knight along with fellow knights during a show at Medieval Times in Buena Park, Calif., on Friday, June 28, 2013.<\/p>\n Allen J. Schaben\/Los Angeles Times\/Getty Images<\/p>\n In August 2025, PureWow<\/a> described the show as \u201ccurrently the hottest destination in town.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n It\u2019s a new development. Medieval Times has been something of a pop culture punch line throughout most of its 43-year lifespan. In the darkly comedic 1996 film \u201cThe Cable Guy,\u201d Jim Carrey\u2019s eponymous character is painfully sincere \u2014 and more than a little unhinged \u2014 about his passion for the place. That Jean Smart\u2019s character in 2004\u2019s \u201cGarden State\u201d is dating a Medieval Times knight is evidence that she doesn\u2019t entirely have her life together.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n As recently as 2020, \u201cSaturday Night Live\u201d lampooned overzealous Medieval Times fans when Adam Driver appeared in a sketch in a \u201ccostume he brought from home,\u201d hell-bent on exacting revenge on the \u201cfalse king\u201d of the show.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cHe’s not wrong: $110 for chicken and potatoes is pretty tyrannical,\u201d\u00a0Thrillist wrote<\/a> at the time. For the record, my ticket cost just under $79, but I declined various experience upgrades, like the \u201cQueen\u2019s Royalty Upgrade.\u201d For an additional $30, it gets you priority seating, souvenir banners to wave, a slice of cake, a framed photo and \u201cthe best seats in the house.\u201d<\/p>\n Maybe we lampoon it so much because we have to kill all our darlings, and the easiest ones to kill are the campiest ones. After all, paying to watch people parading around an arena pretending to kill each other with medieval-inspired swordsmanship is pretty low-hanging fruit as far as mockery goes.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Knights jousting at Medieval Times Dinner & Tournament in Toronto.<\/p>\n UCG\/Getty Images<\/p>\n This is not to ding the Medieval Times performers at all \u2014 throughout the show, every cast member gave a standout performance, despite having to deliver lines and choreography that felt more than a little heavy-handed. And while the fighting may be fake, it comes with real risks. According to NPR<\/a>, workers say that \u201cknights perform dangerous stunts that require them to fight with real titanium weapons and throw themselves off horses at 25 mph for the performance.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n A female employee uses a tablet device to make sales at the Medieval Times Dinner & Tournament in Toronto,\u00a0Dec. 24, 2023.<\/p>\n Roberto Machado Noa\/LightRocket \/Getty Images<\/p>\n Beyond the snark, Medieval Times can be hard to cheer for as a business, too. In recent years, the company has been embroiled in bitter labor disputes at some locations, including Buena Park. In 2022, employees unionized at that location after a monthslong battle to do so. \u201cThe company really used the time to sow the seeds of discord, create a divide within the bargaining unit, and so based off the way things were going and the people we were talking to, even though we started with a super majority of the bargaining unit, there was considerable attrition or at least so it seemed throughout the process,\u201d union organizer and employee Erin Zapcic told NPR<\/a> at the time.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n While that was happening, Medieval Times corporate brought suit against the workers\u2019 union, claiming trademark infringement by union members using the company name and logo in publicizing the negotiation struggle. The suit was dismissed<\/a> in October 2023. In 2025, the company was found to have broken the law many times<\/a> in its fight against unionization.<\/p>\n A knight attacking another with an axe at Medieval Times Dinner & Tournament in Toronto.<\/p>\n Roberto Machado Noa\/UCG \/Getty Images<\/p>\n In 2023, Buena Park employees went on a strike when negotiations stalled, \u201ccalling for increased wages, better workplace conditions and less of what multiple cast members believe to be hostile responses from management,\u201d the Los Angeles Times<\/a> reported at the time. The strike lasted for nine months, with the shows still operating using nonunion labor. In November 2023, the unionized Medieval Times employees returned<\/a> to work without a contract agreement.\u00a0<\/p>\n Meanwhile, longtime employees claim that the Buena Park location is among the most profitable locations in the country, per the LA Times<\/a>. Medieval Times declined to comment for this story.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n PETA has, as you can surely imagine, feelings<\/a> about Medieval Times and its use of animals in the shows, too. For what it\u2019s worth, people claiming to be former employees have posted on Reddit<\/a> about how the animals get \u201camazing care\u201d and are treated \u201cbetter than 95% of staff.\u201d (For what it\u2019s additionally worth, there\u2019s a Medieval Times … Sucks<\/a> website just for airing grievances about the company and the experience.)<\/p>\n Did I like the experience? Yes, but I had to really put some work into that enjoyment. The food is edible, but not good. I can\u2019t offer the same level of enthusiasm for the sugary prebatched cocktails. The show is silly, but as with many silly things, you get out of it what you put into it. My friend and I were cheering as loudly as we could for the Red & Yellow knight \u2014 \u201cthe fiercest swordsman in the kingdom,\u201d according to his\u00a0bio<\/a> \u2014 with every overenthusiastic \u201cHuzzah!\u201d We hurled tongue-in-cheek insults at his opponents \u2014 \u201cOff with his head!\u201d \u201cTen points for Gryffindor!\u201d \u201cYour father smells of elderberries!\u201d \u2014 more than a few times, once the jousting knights had been unhorsed and resorted to hand-to-hand combat.<\/p>\n But I don\u2019t see myself going back anytime soon, not for a king\u2019s ransom.\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cEverything good?\u201d the server asked me. \u201cAre you enjoying your baby dragon?\u201d By that point in the evening,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":242449,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,9,8,923,2008,1228],"class_list":{"0":"post-242448","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-california","8":"tag-california","9":"tag-california-headlines","10":"tag-california-news","11":"tag-sfgculture","12":"tag-sfgla","13":"tag-sfgtravel"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242448","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=242448"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242448\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/242449"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=242448"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=242448"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=242448"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/p>\n
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