Walt Disney World has announced the dates for this year’s Epcot International Food and Wine Festival. It will run from Aug. 29 through Nov. 23, and while that’s nearly three months, it’s slightly shorter than last year’s, which started on July 27. I wonder if Epcotians got tired of dealing with people having heat stroke while drinking their way around the World Showcase.

Before you ask, no, they’re not bringing back cooking demonstrations, wine tasting seminars or Party for the Senses this year. All of those were dropped in 2020 when the pandemic forced the festival to go to an abbreviated schedule of events. So what’s the excuse now? 

Also down Disney way, the workers at the Patina Restaurant Group’s Disney Springs venues – the Edison, Maria & Enzo’s, Enzo’s Hideaway, Morimoto Asia and Pizza Ponte – have expressed a desire to unionize and join Unite Here Local 737, which represents unionized Disney hospitality staffers. The unionizing effort only involves the Disney Springs restaurants and not Patina’s other Disney brands, which include the restaurants at the Italy pavilion and Space 220 at Epcot. Patina Restaurant Group is headquartered in New York City and is a subsidiary of Delaware North, which as the name suggests is located in Buffalo, New York.

Locally grown chain Tijuana Flats has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and has closed several of its restaurants, including the original on Aloma Avenue in Winter Park that founder Brian Wheeler opened in 1995. Wheeler had sold the company in 2015 and it was acquired by a new owner, Flatheads LLC, just last month.