El Mercado de Coronado Review

El Mercado serves breakfast, lunch, and dinner. The restaurant is open daily between 7:00 a.m. and 11:00 p.m. It closes for a brief period between 11:00 and 11:30 a.m. and then again between 2:00 p.m. and 5:00 p.m. as the restaurant changes to different meal periods. It is, however, important to note that the grab-and-go section and refillable beverage station are available for the entirety of the restaurant’s opening hours.

When you walk in, you’re met by a couple of stations. You can browse through each one to see what’s available.

For breakfast, El Mercado offers pretty much the same thing you can get at any resort quick-service. The hotel’s restaurants, however, are operated by an outside company. Therefore, you will find a few nuances on the menu.

Back to breakfast, which usually consists of items like Mickey-shaped waffles, pancakes, and breakfast sandwiches. Instead of the typical “bounty platter” you can get at most resort quick services, El Mercado offers a Grande Fiesta Breakfast. You can preview the entire breakfast menu here or via the My Disney Experience app.

For lunch and dinner, we see a station with Italian items like pizza and pasta, a station with Mexican items like nachos and rice bowls, and an American station with a variety of burgers and everyone’s favorite chicken nuggets. You can preview the entire dinner menu here or in the app. But please note, we have found that the menu isn’t always up-to-date. It’s also important to note that El Mercado does not participate in mobile orders. So you will physically have to visit the restaurant to order and pick up food.

Here’s a look around the grab-and-go station. Since Coronado Springs is a convention resort, the quick service is often stocked with a good variety of premade items and snacks.

You’ll find various bottles of wine and baskets with individual fruit selections like apples, bananas, and oranges.

Here we have refrigerated cases with a few breakfast items and snacks in the mix.

Chips and dip are always a reasonable snack you can take back to the room.

This display had a variety of hearty snacks like granola bars, Nutella snack packs, and various candies.

Here we have a basket with Kind bars.

The refrigerated cases have items like mixed fruit and tubs of grapes.

Here we have pre-made salads. The selections were Cobb Salad, Greek Salad, and Garden Salad on this visit.

A few premade sandwiches were also available.

This cooler had various parfaits.

Several flavors of yogurt are usually available.

Toward the back of El Mercado, there is a bakery case. Hopefully, it will be stocked similarly to what’s pictured below. We stay at Coronado Springs pretty regularly, and while we enjoy the resort, we have found that things at El Mercado are pretty inconsistent. Sometimes, we’ll visit and this case will be impressively stocked, like the items you’ll see below. Other times, however, we’ve visited, and this case has been empty.

Here we have a variety of cupcakes topped with pretty frostings.

The bakery had croissants, cookies, and other pastries on this visit.

We saw lemon bars, brownies, and donuts.

Muffins, danishes, and crumb cake were also available.

These pre-packaged cookies looked delicious.

Before we wrap things up, we’ll take a look at the dining room. You’ll find plenty of seating.

In the center of the dining room, you’ll find a large beverage refill station. This station is the primary place to refill Rapid Fill Mugs at the resort. We have a separate guide with every location that details how the refillable mugs work at Coronado Springs.

You can also refill mugs with coffee and hot chocolate. If you’re a coffee lover, we have found that Coronado Springs has more options than any other resort. Our Coronado Springs Coffee Guide lists each location with menu items.

Final Thoughts

Overall, we like El Mercado but find that the inconsistencies are frustrating. Since the menu changes fairly often, it’s difficult to form a game plan of how often you’ll eat there before you arrive. We’ve also seen reports where guests stay for a week and enjoy the options and don’t see why anyone would complain about it. Then other reviews, where guests report subpar offerings. These types of one-off reviews can be very frustrating because it’s difficult to gauge what to expect.

Do I think the quick service is a deal-breaker when it comes to staying at the resort? No, we enjoy this resort and consider it one of our favorites. Technically, my only complaint is that I never know what to expect with El Mercado. Thankfully, the resort has a lot of great dining options. It’s just disheartening that we can’t say El Mercado is one of them.

For more on Disney’s Coronado Springs Resort (that we really do love), you might enjoy the following:

• Getting To and From Disney’s Coronado Springs (Pocket PDF)
• Disney’s Coronado Springs at Night Photo Walk-Through
• Gran Destino Tower Review at Disney’s Coronado Springs
• Disney’s Coronado Springs Resort Review

You might also enjoy our Coronado Springs Restaurants List with an overview of each option.

In the Comments

Have you ever dined at El Mercado de Coronado? What was your experience? Let us know in the comments below.