By gone places / Rainforest Cafe, the jungle within the big city

By Alejandro Pohlenz

I don’t think anyone specifically remembers the food from Rainforest Café. The menu was “American,” which doesn’t say much. Burgers, fried chicken and fish, not-so-Italian pasta, and the unavoidable BBQ ribs. There was a phenomenal dessert that was also a calorie bomb called “Volcano Cake,” which was simply sensational: brownie walls forming a mountain, with vanilla ice cream instead of lava…

The Beginnings of Rainforest Café

Let’s go back to the start: Mr. Steven Schusser, who specialized in “themed” restaurants (he also has one called “T-Rex Café”), founded the first Rainforest Café in 1994 in Bloomington, Minnesota, USA. By 1997, there were six locations. Starting in 1998, many of these restaurants opened worldwide.

The one I knew was in Santa Fe Shopping Center. As a child, I would have gone crazy over the moving animals—a snake, an elephant, and a fierce crocodile that you could toss coins to, among other creatures. The sounds of the jungle welcomed you as you waited for a table: a furious tropical storm would brew periodically, and while enjoying chicken fingers, you could intermittently gaze at a starry night and the trees and foliage of the humid climate.

In 2000, the restaurant was acquired by Landry’s Incorporated, a Houston company with over 600 restaurants, entertainment venues, and gaming establishments. In Mexico City, there were two Rainforest Cafés: the aforementioned one in the west and another in Mundo E, to the north.

Goodbye, Forever

Both lush restaurants vanished in 2016 in Mexico, although 16 still operate in the United States.

The rainforest has extinguished, and the elephant will no longer lift its trunk or flap its ears.

What We Loved: The Volcano Cake.

• Address: Vasco de Quiroga 3800 Santa Fe, Cuajimalpa de Morelos, 05348, and number 1007, Periférico Blvd. Manuel Ávila Camacho Manzana 003, Jardines de Santa Mónica, 54055 Tlalnepantla, Méx.
• Hours of Operation: Closed permanently.