Category Archives: Personal

Hadley Meares has posted a new article at KCET.org about one of my personal heroes, Walt Disney.  I’m always fascinated by the intricacies of Disney, and finding out that he ate at the same places I like – like the Tam O’Shanter that was right up the street from one of my parent’s apartment buildings on Los Feliz – builds a stronger bond within me, linking me to those great people who shared the same likes, dislikes, and views as I do.

From the article:

“Walt didn’t like fancy stuff. . . . He was a very complex man, but his tastes were very simple.” — Songwriter Richard Sherman, 2009

The original Imagineer found inspiration everywhere he ate.

For all his fantastic dreams, Walt Disney was a mid-century man, with a middle-class, middle of the road taste in food. “Before he married mother, father had eaten in hash houses and lunch wagons for so many years in order to save money that he’d developed a hash house-lunch wagon appetite,” his daughter Diane wrote. “He liked fried potatoes, hamburgers, western sandwiches, hotcakes, canned peas, hash, stew, roast beef sandwiches.”

His favorite meal was a can of Gebhardt’s chili mixed with a can of Dennison’s chili, which he often ate at his desk. He was also a big fan of V-8 juice, which he would offer to visitors at the studio, who were often disappointed that there was nothing stronger available.

To read the whole article and find out more about where Walt Disney ate, go HERE.