The decline of Rainforest Cafe: A look at its journey and closure

Ah, the rainforest, home of dense tropical vegetation, a wide variety of animal species, and fake strobe-like thunderstorms every 20 minutes. Or maybe that's just the Rainforest Cafe. Yes, the restaurant chain has been capturing the hearts and minds of diners since it first sprang to life in 1994. But as the years go by, those hearts and minds have been left to wonder, whatever happened to Rainforest Cafe? Today, we'll be looking at why, much like our planet's real-life rainforests, Rainforest Cafes are slowly being wiped from the map. Now, let's take some bets. Food, win in a fight. The Rainforest Cafe's wild bunch, or the whole Five Nights at Freddy's crew? Rainforest Cafe was the dream of advertising salesman Steven Schusler. He wanted to transport diners to a wild tropical paradise with a highly themed restaurant that made use of 3D environments, realistic lighting, and sound design. And he wasn't about to let little things like inexperience or not owning a commercial property get in the way. In 1989, Schusler sold all his belongings and used the money to turn his Minneapolis suburban home into the very first Rainforest Cafe. Make no mistake, this prototype was every bit as extravagant as the real thing, with a man-made river on the front lawn to catch your eye. Inside, Schusler shelled out for a 35-foot-tall waterfall with artificial boulders, high-tech sound systems to simulate thunderstorms, fog machines, fake plants, and a bunch of animatronic crocodiles and monkeys to set the mood. Alongside the animatronics, Schusler also brought in a number of live animals: ten 300-gallon fish tanks, over 40 tropical birds, an iguana, a baboon, a 150-pound tortoise, several species of butterflies, and presumably a partridge in a pear tree. All made their home in the fledgling Rainforest Cafe. Schusler truly spared no expense in his quest to build the perfect dining experience. The soon-to-be restaurant owner personally hauled 3,700 extension cords into his house to power all these effects and animal exhibits, racking up a shocking $2,000 electricity bill. After four years of development, he sunk $400,000 into the project before he was finally ready to show it to investors. But he was so preoccupied with whether or not he could, he didn't stop to think if he should. As it turns out, convincing people to invest in your business by taking them to your restaurant house full of real and fake animals isn't an easy task. What the hell is wrong with you people? Schusler struggled to find anyone interested in the project and even had to file for bankruptcy in 1991. Meanwhile, things weren't going well at home. According to an Orange Coast Magazine write-up, Schusler's neighbors weren't fond of his newest business venture. They thought the whole thing was a front for a temple for devil worship or a bordello. Prostitution. Boy, a rainforest cafe would be an unhygienic place for a bordello. Meanwhile, the DEA took notice of Schusler's excess electricity usage and investigated him under suspicion of running a marijuana farm. Imagine going over to investigate a grow op and a baboon opens the door. Thankfully, Schusler was cleared of any legal wrongdoing. Though his neighbors probably still hated him, and he finally got the big break he was looking for. Lyle Berman, a Minnesota-based gambling magnate, invested 1.2 million dollars into Rainforest Cafe and became its first CEO. Not long after, the newly formed company opened its first non-residential restaurant location in the Mall of America, and the cash started flowing like a fake river in your neighbor's front yard. The Mall of America had become a national curiosity the moment it opened in 1992. As the largest mall in the country, it boasted all the usual fare like food courts and clothing stores, but there was also a movie theater, a theme park, and an aquarium, which is convenient because Schusler probably needed somewhere to dump all those fish tanks. The excess of American opulence in the 90s were on full display at the shopping center, making it the perfect home for Rainforest Cafe. The burgeoning restaurant found a spot on the first floor in 1994, and within a week of opening, a three-hour wait for a table had become the norm. One year later, a second Rainforest Cafe sprouted up at Woodfield Mall in Schaumburg, Illinois. By 1997, there were six locations across the United States, and by 1999, the animatronic-laden restaurants had appeared worldwide. The chain had become America's top-earning franchise, with each location raking in a cool eight million clams per year. Though they weren't any animatronic clams, that's a different climate. So why was it such a success? It was a different time, man. The 1990s were the golden age of themed restaurants, from staples like the Hard Rock Cafe and Bubblegum Shrimp Company that still exist today, to short-lived gems like Planet Hollywood. America was chock full of a variety of restaurants that took theme to the extreme, and the Rainforest Cafe just so happened to be a particularly captivating experience. During the 90s heydays, stepping into a rainforest cafe really was like stepping into, well, not a real rainforest, but maybe like a rainforest movie set. As with Schlussler's prototype, every rainforest cafe location was populated with thick fake foliage, water features, and countless animatronic creatures. Every 20 minutes, the lights would flash and thunder boomed from overhead speakers, while the animatronics made an upsetting amount of noise. But perhaps the strangest told over from the original concept was the live birds that flew freely around the restaurant while diners enjoyed their food. What did these birds think when a patron ordered a bird to eat? Speaking of eating, the meals themselves were almost an afterthought, offering an expected mix of pizzas, pasta, sandwiches, ribs, and pork chops that all leaned heavily on spicy seasoning and their signature rainforest rescue sauce. Luckily, prices were as mediocre as the food, with one 1998 review of the Vegas location claiming no dish was priced above fifteen dollars. Rather than being served by a waiter, rainforest cafe patrons were led through their dining journey by a safari guide. On your way out, you stopped by the in-house gift shop, which featured everything from t-shirts to pins to piggy banks. Okay, pigs aren't really rainforest animals, so what are we doing here? Plus, don't forget to say your goodbyes to rainforest cafe's iconic mascot Tracy Tree and the Wild Bunch. That might sound like a bizarre rainforest themed hip hop group, but they're actually the restaurant chain's family friendly characters. The animatronic Tracy Tree graced most rainforest cafe gift shops and sprouted rainforest facts for all who passed by. Look at all those fish! And the Wild Bunch was a collection of animal mascots that graced the rainforest cafe sign. The most prominent of these was Chacha the red-eyed tree frog, but the bunch also included Bamba the gorilla, Iggy the iguana, Maya the jaguar, Nile the crocodile, Rio the macaw, Tuki the elephant, and Ozzy the orangutan. And when they play a game of pickup basketball, well, lights out. These crazy creatures were plastered all over the merchandise during rainforest cafe's golden years. But as the 90s came to a close, their popularity, in fact, the entire rainforest cafe's popularity, was critically endangered. In the year two thousand, rainforest cafe was bought by a restaurant management company called Landry's. The first thing the new management did was remove all the live parrots from each location and fire the on-staff animal handlers. You're fired. This saved the company a hundred thousand dollars a year, but according to Schuessler, destroyed the spirit of the restaurant. Throughout the late 90s and early 00s, a number of new rainforest cafes were opened all over the world, including in downtown Disney and Disney Springs, the shopping districts next to Disney parks on both coasts. Sadly, the expansion effort was short-lived. Many of these locations closed as it became clear that the themed restaurant bubble was bursting. With the rise of online storefronts, shopping malls were quickly becoming obsolete, which was bad news for the rainforest cafes since many of their locations relied on mall foot traffic. The original Mall of America location closed in 2014, reopening two years later in a less ostentatious space on the third floor. Then in 2018, the Disneyland location was closed and eventually replaced by a Star Wars Galaxy's Edge trading outpost. And they don't even sell pork chops. What a ripoff! The 2020 COVID 19 pandemic was an even harsher blow for rainforest cafes as any surviving locations were forced to shutter their doors and attempt to weather the storm. Luckily, rainforests had decades of practice with storms, so despite all these hardships and their ever-shrinking presence, rainforest cafes are still around. You just have to know where to look for them. Including the third floor Mall of America location, 23 rainforest cafes are still operating around the world today. You can find them everywhere, from Las Vegas to Niagara Falls to Dubai. And while they may not have live parrots flying overhead anymore, they're still just as charmingly kitschy as they used to be. Visitors are still enamored with the scheduled thunderstorms, awkward robotic animals, and dusty fake plants. This was proved by the overwhelmingly positive response to a 2024 April Fool's joke where the Empire State Building claimed to be putting a rainforest cafe on the 86th floor. Oh yeah! Fans rejoiced until they realized they wouldn't actually get to live out their dreams of eating in the world's highest rainforest cafe. But what about the dreams of the man who brought us rainforest cafe in the first place? While Stephen Schusler may not have pursued any more extreme home renovations, he has sold other restaurant concepts, including T Rex Cafe, which is basically the rainforest cafe but with dinosaurs, which, is to say, sounds awesome. He also wrote a book called It's a Jungle in There, which details his experience with the rainforest brand and his less than typical approach to entrepreneurship. While the rainforest cafe may not be the most prolific restaurant chain in the world, it endures. An animatronic elephant never forgets, and as long as there are people with fond memories of squawking parrots and strobe lights, it looks like the rainforest is here to stay.