Rainforest Cafe at Sawgrass Mills in Sunrise

Rainforest Cafe is one of the few destination restaurants I can think of. It’s a bit like Disney. Some kids love going there, you end up traveling some distance for it, and at some point you start to feel the lack of authenticity. Today we visited the one at Sawgrass Mills in Sunrise, Florida.
Kids love it for the interior, filled with animatronic animals, huge fish tanks and even thunderstorms. The entrance is loaded with merchandise.

For adults, the interior wins you over on the first visit. You don’t notice the food as much. But on repeat visits you realize that the food costs twice as much as TGI Fridays and isn’t half as good. The pasta sauces are weak. My entree a seafood trio, was mostly uninspired. The blackened tilapia with mango salsa was not bad. The coconut shrimp was a mass of coconut breading covering tiny shrimp. Like a corn dog but not as good. The dynamite shrimp and scallops was just ok.
On the bright side, the Volcano dessert is excellent. It’s chocolate cake, vanilla ice cream and whipped cream, topped with a sparkler. There’s more than enough for 2 adults and 2 kids, and its a bargain at $13.50.
There are two more negatives. First, it’s hard to find it within the mall. There’s no good place to park for Rainforest Cafe. Our best guess is somewhere near Grand Lux. Google Maps and the Mall’s own signage were inconsistent and both unhelpful. Companies like this need to realise that signage is important for their customers. They could look at products by super cheap signs to improve customer experience. Anyway, here’s the mall map:

Second, there’s no wifi. This is exacerbated by the poor cell phone reception inside Rainforest Cafe (possibly due to all the interior features).
One other minor point – lighting in the Sawgrass Mills parking lot near Marshall’s was inadequate. Along with other issues, that created mild safety concerns. Considering the volume of business, the mall should be able to afford better lighting.
With all that said, if you live in West Boca and you’ve never been, Rainforest Cafe is worth a trip with your kids. It is about a half hour drive, south on the Sawgrass to the Sunrise exit just before 595. For future visits we will eat dinner somewhere else and do dessert at RC.
They could do so much more with this concept. They could add items to the menu that really fit with the theme, and perhaps include products and foods that support rain forest sustainability. They could make the tiniest effort to educate kids and patrons about ecological issues, but they actually misinform by including giraffes in some of the imagery. Giraffes do not live in that habitat. Instead it’s crass commercialism. But if you like that sort of thing (and many do), there’s also a lot of good shopping in the mall before and after you eat.