Wetzel's Pretzels, Orlando, Florida Restaurant Details

Food:

Where the hell am I the local Mall???? Go here and hate yourself because I already do!
Head over to Lego store and get some plastic blocks to you dummy!

Food:

Tasty but expensive.

Food:

I recently attended a Concert at the House of Blues, and wanted to grab something to eat QUICKLY before the concert. I thought for sure Downtown Disney would have some acceptable options - I was wrong. My choices were the takeout line of Wolfgang Pucks (a chain the represents the absolute worst of the tendency for celebrity chefs to pimp-out their names to subpar restaurants), which I was inclined to settle for until they informed me it would be a 35 minute wait for food AFTER enduring a 15 minute line. So I walked towards Pleasure Island thinking to myself "really, I'd be satisfied with just a hotdog stand at this point". Finally I happened upon Wetzel. As Wetzel was literally my last choice, I reluctantly entered when I saw they offered hot dogs.

Well, it turns out the folks at Wetzel's had to get all unnecessarily creative on us. A regular hot dog on a nice fluffy bun just won't do for these folks. Their "Wetzel dog" is an extremely low quality dog wrapped in a gooey, gross dough like substance, apparently this is supposed to represent a pretzel but trust me no pretzel I've ever tasted is this bad, Aunti Anne must be turning in her grave. As I approached the line I saw they had 3 or 4 workers cranking out Wetzel Dogs by coating dogs in dough at an incredible pace, like some sort of Willey Wonka oompa loompas from hell (only taller and not orange). I approached the register and said "I'll have one Wetzel Dog and one Wetzel cheese dog and a water". Despite the complete lack of other customers and the trio of Wetzel Dog creators, I was informed they were out of Wetzel dogs and had only one Cheese Dog, which literally looked as if it had been sitting under the heat lamp for 6 months. Apparently, the huge batch of Dogs I had just witnessed being covered in dough were just going in to the oven and wouldn't be ready for some time. Great, cause an added benefit of a nice fluffy hotdog bun, like every other hotdog vender on earth uses, means you can actually keep up with customer demand without this unnecessary added step. I reluctantly accepted the single, 6 month old Cheese Wetzel Dog and a water and was charged $7.59 - RIP OFF. As I sank my teeth into the cheese dog I expected it to be the worst hot dog I've ever tasted, and on this front I was not disappointed - it was downright terrible. The only redeeming aspect of my trip to Wetzel was I got to laugh at my friend, who, after I snatched the last cheese dog, was forced to order Wetze'ls take on a Pretzelized version of Pepperoni pizza (it literally looked like someone ate a pepperoni pizza and subsequently vomited it into a pretzel mold, no joke). To add insult to injury, when we finally entered House of Blues we saw that they sell not only hot dogs (which actually looked good), but chicken fangers as well. Oh well, live and learn.

Seriously Disney, is it really a requirement to think "outside the box" even when doing so runs counter to offering decent food? Would a Burger King or a Wendy's in this location really be all that terrible? Heaven forbid a hungry concertgoer be forced to purchase a $.99 cheeseburger. I'm crossing my fingers that Wetzel goes out of business between now and my next trip to DT Disney, hopefully to be replaced by one of my former suggestions or a McDonalds or something. Heck, even a Chick fil A would be an upgrade compared to this garbage. I've dined at a lot of fast food and pseudo fast food establishments in my life, and Wetzel takes the prize as the single worst restaurant concept I have ever encountered.