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Non-Tech : RAINFOREST CAFE -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Dennis Vail who wrote (3613)	12/13/1997 7:28:00 PM
From: GrapeWiz	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 4704

Greetings everyone! Enough with the titles already. Lord Ned, geez. Don't want to steal any of Marshall's (NP Jupe) thunder, but he's got a longer ride home from Aventura than I did, so rather than keep you all waiting, I'll post my thoughts and I'm sure Marshall will add additional comments when he gets home. As per Dennis's earlier repost from MF, RAIN Aventura officially opens tomorrow, December 12th. Jupe and I were able to get a bit of a preview during their pre-opening service training today. Much of the staff from Sawgrass has been transferred here, so there were lots of familiar faces. Although one wonders who's left to run Sawgrass, I was assured that it is still in good hands :) Physically, Aventura RAIN is an impressive two-story unit, on the 2nd and 3rd floor of the mall, with about 100 seats downstairs and 350 up. A 40 foot waterfall is the centerpiece providing a lush backdrop for the stairway. The downstairs seems much quieter, in contrast to the customary noise level up top. There is also an outside terrace seating area, which is not yet opened. Kitchen is on the second floor, so it's a bit of a physical challenge for the servers to carry the food down the stairway. Mushroom Bars on both levels. Immediately noticable is the improved animatronics for the animals, which have much more lifelike movement than in previous incarnations. The gorillas actually move the trees, and a baby gorilla swings back and forth. The elephant stomps its leg. Small refinements, perhaps, but it shows that someone is paying attention to the details. Indeed, I find that in all areas, RAIN has been learning from their earlier efforts and making improvements on them. Another example would be that the face on Tracy Tree has been lowered to make it more "kid friendly." The retail area has a "Mayan Wall" that looks like an ancient Incan ruin with relief carvings of the RAIN characters on it. Lots of new retail items including picture frames with the RAIN characters, children's melamine (spelling?) dinnerware and, of course, new styles and colors of clothing. Aventura is a very upscale mall in a wealthy neighborhood, unlike some of the Mills projects. Management is expecting to do a lot of private parties here, and has already booked some, even though the unit hasn't even opened yet. They expect that this will be a very successful, profitable unit. RAIN is also still scouting for at least one more South Florida location, although none has been confirmed yet. It's about to RAIN again in Miami. Next stop...Las Vegas... -NP Grape