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Universal Destinations & Experiences is known for their high-quality immersive experiences. So, why does their real-life Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza restaurant seem like a low effort afterthought?  

Every year Universal Destinations & Experiences hosts Halloween Horror Nights at their theme parks in Orlando, Hollywood, Japan, and Singapore. The annual Halloween event features walkthrough haunted houses themed after different properties and original concepts, specialty food items, scarezones, and other unique experiences. This year’s Orlando event, which runs from August 29 through November 2, includes a Five Nights at Freddy’s haunted house, and a pop-up Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza restaurant.

The idea of a real version of Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza intrigued me. Walking through a haunted house was one thing, but to be able to sit down and have pizza in an actual Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza restaurant would be a unique experience. I know that pop-up restaurants aren’t known for their high-quality theming, so while I was curious, my expectations were low.

It turns out, my expectations weren’t low enough.

First off, the theming was incredibly lazy. Universal simply did a low effort retheme of Louie’s Italian Restaurant, one of their quick service pizza restaurants. The exterior looks the same, with no apparent clues that this is supposed to be the iconic Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza. The interior is largely unchanged, minus a cardboard cutout of the animatronics people could pose with, and a few Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza decals around the counter. And even those decals are small.

I understand the reasoning for this. Universal needed a quick service pizza restaurant that could be cheaply repurposed for the duration of Halloween Horror Nights, and Louie’s fit the bill. However, everything about it seems off. It’s as if they said, “They serve pizza, so that’s close enough,” which ignores the fact that Louie’s and Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza are two different types of pizza places.

Louie’s is a traditional Italian restaurant with black and white pictures of New York City on their walls. Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza is closer to Chuck E. Cheese. The only similarity is that they both serve pizza.

I understand that budget is an issue, but Universal could have done more to at least make Louie’s look like Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza. They could’ve easily taken down the numerous black and white NYC photos, and replaced them with images of the animatronics, birthday parties, and other bits of flair you might find on the wall at a place like Freddy’s.

In fact, Louie’s is right next to the Palace Arcade Theater, which has plenty of arcade games. Utilizing the proximity to an actual arcade is such a missed opportunity. I understand they couldn’t put a pizza oven in the arcade, or moved all the machines to Louie’s, but there were other opportunities to take advantage of the shared space. Either the Universal creatives didn’t realize Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza wasn’t supposed to be an Italian restaurant, or they didn’t care.

I would love to say the food is a redeeming quality, but sadly that isn’t the case. Their big selling point (aside from the subpar theming) is the Why Not Have Both Pizza & Pasta, which is a giant slice of pizza with spaghetti and meatballs on it. That would be cool, if the spaghetti wasn’t stale. By the way, in case you didn’t know, spaghetti gets hard when it’s stale, which isn’t pleasant to eat.

I wondered if maybe I just had a bad batch, but numerous people I spoke to have gone to the event on different nights, and they’ve all had the same complaint. This is because quick-service restaurants largely pre-cook the food and leave it out until a customer orders it. This is great for regular pizza, not for spaghetti, which gets stale fast.

The specialty mocktail drinks, Chica’s Sour Lemon Tang and Foxy’s Strawberry Soda, were both great. There’s also a cupcake dessert designed to look like Mr. Cupcake, which is a fun touch. However, those redeeming qualities weren’t enough to save the concept of this restaurant.

When Universal Destinations & Experiences put their mind to it, they are great with immersion. The various worlds at Epic Universe prove it and will no doubt influence future theme park developers for generations to come. In contrast, Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza feels like a last-minute edition done with little to no budget.

It’s a good thing the Five Nights at Freddy’s haunted house has been such a hit, because the restaurant just isn’t cutting it. I took a FNAF superfan to Halloween Horror Nights, because I wanted to experience this restaurant with someone who had an emotional connection with the franchise. His assessment was damning. “If this was the best they could do, then this wasn’t worth doing at all.”

The Five Nights at Freddy's phenomenon is lasting longer than five nights. Get up to speed, with how to play all the FNAF games in order, why Five Nights at Freddy's is the ideal starter kit for a kid wanting to get into horror, details on the characters and lore, getting to know the FNAF movie animatronics, how the movie fits in the canon of the games, and how Chuck E. Cheese is responding.

Can't get enough? We have recommendations for five movies to watch after Five Nights at Freddy's.