{"id":286756,"date":"2026-04-26T11:40:11","date_gmt":"2026-04-26T11:40:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/286756\/"},"modified":"2026-04-26T11:40:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-26T11:40:11","slug":"laxs-crumbling-icon-once-housed-a-bizarre-disney-restaurant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/286756\/","title":{"rendered":"LAX’s crumbling icon once housed a bizarre Disney restaurant"},"content":{"rendered":"

It may be the \u201cworst airport in the world<\/a>,\u201d but Los Angeles International Airport is home to one of Southern California\u2019s most iconic landmarks: the Theme Building, a spaceship-looking symbol of everything that is right with the city\u2019s use of midcentury design and everything that is wrong with LAX\u2019s planning. For years, the impossible-to-miss building has sat empty, unloved and falling deeper into disrepair \u2014 but once upon a time, Disney had a restaurant inside.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Ultimately, Encounter existed for a brief epoch in the Theme Building\u2019s history, though it was certainly a memorable era. The structure was completed in 1961, three decades after the airport opened, and was originally designed to be LAX\u2019s flight control tower. As plans evolved, the building gained traction as a tourist destination, symbolizing the bright future of air travel. \u201cYou will have the first airport terminal area specifically designed for the jet age and it may well achieve some of the world-wide renown, some of the international acclaim as \u2014 who knows \u2014 Disneyland,\u201d Federal Aviation Administration Chairman Najeeb Halaby said<\/a> at the time. Curiously, the Theme Building\u2019s architects, William Pereira and Charles Luckman, also did the first design of Disneyland (plans that Walt Disney ultimately rejected).<\/p>\n

In the 1990s, decades after Disney\u2019s groundbreaking theme park opened in Anaheim, Walt Disney Imagineering took on the ambitious project of redesigning \u2014 and by extension, reinvigorating interest in \u2014 the restaurant that\u2019s suspended from the Theme Building\u2019s spider-like legs, hanging high above the ground.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n

The Walt Disney Company has a long history of projects that don\u2019t quite make sense within its entertainment universe. Case in point: the Queen Mary, the retired ocean liner that\u2019s now a floating hotel in Long Beach<\/a>. An unlikely late-\u201980s business deal led to an attempt by Disney to create a Haunted Mansion at sea<\/a> on the once-opulent behemoth, which was a short-lived flop. Imagineers created prototype rooms that had creepy special effects, but the project was too costly and ultimately thwarted by the city of Long Beach, which did not want Disney to expand its attractions there. The company ended its operational lease in 1992.<\/p>\n

\"Encounter,<\/p>\n

Encounter, the famous restaurant at Los Angeles\u00a0International Airport, is viewed from a parking lot on April 26, 2012, in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n

George Rose\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Two years later, LAX ended what the\u00a0LA Times<\/a> described as \u201cthirty-four years of culinary hegemony\u201d when it expanded its food offerings beyond a single operator, allowing other restaurant companies into its terminals, including Wolfgang Puck. As a showpiece, Disney was brought on to revive the Theme Building\u2019s restaurant.<\/p>\n

While Disney would provide the content and design for the space, it was to be run by CA One Services, now Delaware North Companies Travel Hospitality Services, which operates restaurants and shops in many airports.<\/p>\n

Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n

Up until that point, LAX\u2019s former food operator, Host International Inc., had run Host International Restaurant in the Theme Building, which touted itself in advertisements<\/a> as having \u201ccontinental cuisine\u201d and \u201cclassic French service.\u201d But even the ad\u2019s heavy emphasis on free valet parking belied the restaurant\u2019s biggest problem. Even without the barrier of having to get through security to eat there, people weren\u2019t dining there the way they used to when air travel was a novelty, and people would go to the airport just for the thrill of watching planes take off.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Encounter\u2019s Disney touches were supposed to be the antidote to that issue. \u201cThe Theme Building\u2019s perennial problem in attracting visitors to its isolated location would be attacked by shuttling patrons to and from the restaurant in a space probe-style van, perhaps with a driver wearing a space alien costume,\u201d the Times<\/a> wrote in 1994.<\/p>\n

\"InteriorSteven A. Miller via Flickr CC 2.0<\/p>\n

Disney appointed Imagineer Eddie Sotto to lead the project. \u201cTheme has to go deep,\u201d Sotto once told the LA Times<\/a>. \u201cIt has to 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

Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n

He envisioned the space as \u201cBarbarellagant,\u201d he wrote on his company Sotto Studios\u2019 blog, playing off the Theme Building\u2019s Space Age aesthetic to create a \u201c\u2018George Jetson meets James Bond\u2019 experience.\u201d The bar would be lined with lava lamps, and drinks would come out of \u201cray guns\u201d that made sounds as they poured. Guests could pop in on a layover, or families could visit simply for the joy of the otherworldly themed experience.\u00a0(For an absolutely wild ride back into the internet of 1998, check out the archive of the original Encounter website<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

For its first few years, the restaurant thrived, bringing in customers and mostly rave reviews, even from the New York Times. \u201cRare is the airport bar that leaves an impression. \u2026 Rarer still is the airport bar with the magic to become a destination in its own right,\u201d read its 1997 review<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cYet that is exactly what has happened at Encounter, a recently remodeled restaurant and lounge that sits like a flying saucer on concrete stilts in the center of Los Angeles International Airport,\u201d the review continued.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"ExteriorThomas Hawk via Flickr CC 2.0<\/p>\n

The menu\u00a0sourced its inspiration from all over the world, serving Asian-, Italian- and Latin American-inspired foods. That said, not everyone was a fan. The LA Times<\/a> panned the \u201cdreadful\u201d food as \u201ctoo ambitious\u201d the same year its New York counterpart raved about it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n

The restaurant caught on with not just travelers but the see-and-be-seen LA set. \u201cWith the tried-and-true spots, there is a vibe that is all about the L.A. club scene,\u201d Jay Dynton told the New York Times<\/a>. \u201cEncounter is that, plus crazy lost tourists from all over the world. It\u2019s like partying at Disneyland.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Celebrities, especially those with a fondness for aviation, came in droves. Just weeks after its 1996 opening, John Travolta hosted his birthday party at the restaurant. In 1997, Harrison Ford hosted an afterparty for the \u201cAir Force One\u201d premiere there. Quentin Tarantino did the same for \u201cJackie Brown\u201d that year. James Cameron followed suit with a celebration at Encounter not long after.<\/p>\n

\u201cGrowing up, everybody\u2019s seen the building, but never been inside,\u201d DJ Senor\u00a0Amor told the NY Times<\/a>. \u201cBut now that they\u2019ve renovated it, and the inside kind of matches the exterior, there\u2019s no place like it in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

But after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, when air travel took a massive blow, the restaurant struggled. It faced another huge setback in 2007<\/a>, when the Theme Building needed emergency repairs for structural issues; Encounter was closed for eight<\/a> months.<\/p>\n

Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

The bar at Encounter had lava lamps and \u201cray guns\u201d that dispensed beverages.<\/p>\n

Steven A. Miller via Flickr CC 2.0<\/p>\n

The restaurant closed permanently in 2014. \u201cWhy is\u00a0L.A.\u2019s beloved 900 tons of steel topped with 135-foot-tall parabolic arches standing empty? Apparently we just didn\u2019t love it enough,\u201d the LA Times wrote<\/a> at the time.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe problem is, it was built when bringing your family out to have dinner and watch the airplanes was a cool thing to do,\u201d L.A. World Airports Executive Director Gina Marie Lindsey said in the story. \u201cPassengers 1777203610 won\u2019t leave the terminals to have dinner there because it\u2019s unpredictable how long it\u2019ll take them to get through security again.\u201d<\/p>\n

Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n

No other restaurant took over the space. Even the airport itself sounds bleak when discussing the Theme Building\u2019s next life. An LAX fact sheet<\/a> on the space released in 2020 had no real plans for its future. \u201cOne of the benefits of the new Automated People Mover (APM) train is that it will bring a significant number of airport guests into the vicinity of the Theme Building, greatly increasing the foot traffic nearby,\u201d it said, while noting that the still-delayed transportation system<\/a> won\u2019t connect to the building directly. Not having anything inside the Theme Building will be an even bigger missed opportunity once the 2028 LA Olympics<\/a> brings another million-plus people through the city, and by extension, through the airport.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Disney has leaned into Space Age restaurants since Encounter\u2019s demise. In recent years, EPCOT, Walt Disney World\u2019s technology-forward park, has opened two eateries that evoke the feeling of being in another world. Space 220 brings people up an elevator into \u201couter space\u201d for dining in the cosmos, and Geo-82 is the park\u2019s new cocktail lounge inside its iconic Spaceship Earth dome.<\/p>\n