Rainforest Cafe Books Downtown Disney Spot

Rainforest Cafe Inc. said Tuesday that it will locate its largest site yet, a 600-seat themed restaurant and retail outlet, at Downtown Disney, the entertainment-oriented mall that Walt Disney Co. will open in 2001 beside Disneyland.

Hopkins, Minn.-based Rainforest, which opened its first restaurant in 1994, currently has 23 U.S. sites and licenses eight overseas. They include two Southern California sites, in the South Coast Plaza and Ontario Mills shopping centers, two at Walt Disney World near Orlando, Fla., and one at Disneyland Paris.

The Walt Disney World stores generate the most revenue of all the Rainforest Cafes, said Mark Robinow, the chain’s chief financial officer. He said he expects “similar” results from the one at Downtown Disney. “We would project that this unit would do somewhere between $23 million and $28 million” a year in sales, Robinow said.

Downtown Disney, part of a $1.4-billion expansion at Disneyland, will include themed retail, dining, nightclubs, movie theaters and other businesses. It will connect two theme parks--the new Disney’s California Adventure and Disneyland--with Disneyland Hotel and the Disneyland Pacific Hotel. To round out its offerings as a “destination resort,” Disney also is building a 750-room luxury hotel, the Grand Californian, inside the new park.

Rainforest joins La Brea Bakery as the announced tenants at Downtown Disney.