A MOUSE CLUBHOUSE EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW
GARY MAGGETTI
talks about getting a job at Disney
and his early Disney days

by Scott and Shani Wolf

I had never met Gary Maggetti before this interview. As someone who enjoys cooking as well as eating at many of the Disneyland Resort's great restaurants I was sure I'd enjoy this meeting with Disneyland Resort's Director of Parks Food & Beverage.

What I didn't expect was to find somebody who is so nice, friendly, courteous and professional. It's just wonderful how it's so obvious that Gary not only loves his job, but gets great joy by pleasing the public via the many types of food experiences available at Disneyland. His enthusiasm is contagious and I couldn't wait to get back into the park to eat at another Disneyland restaurant.

Scott Wolf: Were you a Disney fan before you worked for Disney?

Gary Maggetti: Absolutely. I have a twin brother who actually now works for the company. He’s our concept chef. He just joined the resort almost two years ago. We grew up in Northern California up in San Jose and our family used to save up and we’d come down to Disneyland every two years.

So there’d be the anticipation of coming down, and then the incredible trip and then going back and then trying to relive all the experiences. We tried to build Disneyland in our house… I had little cups on a string, that was the skyway.

Growing up, hospitality was a big part of some of the enjoyment when we’d go either to Disneyland or different places. My brother and I would always explore the hotel.

I always thought I was going to be in the hotel business so I knew I wanted to do that. I knew I wanted to be in some kind of hospitality-related piece and my brother wanted to be a chef so our destinies were already set to be in some sort of industry like that.

I went to Northern Arizona University to get a degree in hotel and restaurant manager and kind of found my way into the restaurant side of the business because I didn’t have a car, I didn’t have any transportation. I needed to find a job in the first semester I was there and the closest thing were fast food restaurants, so I walked across the street to McDonalds and they hired me on the spot and I worked five nights a week closing the grill in the kitchen and ended up working my way through college with McDonalds. I ended up opening up a couple restaurants and that was my first entry into leadership and all that stuff, too, so I kind of got hooked into the pace of the Food and Beverage side of the business.

But, Disney really intrigued me because fortunately the university I went to was a magnet for the college program for both coasts so Walt Disney World came out and did their presentation on campus, and I thought, “How cool is that.” Hospitality, the leader in hospitality and creating incredible experiences for guests and guest service.

SW: How does that work? They go to selected colleges and look for people?

GM: They do. They have three programs a year… fall, spring and summer and they and they basically invite students to participate for the duration of that time period and sometimes you get credit, sometimes you don’t. It depends on whether they have an agreement with your university. But, they recruit for hospitality roles, front line, hourly positions.

Even though my degree was going to be in hotel and restaurant management I thought, “They’ve got hotels. They’ve got restaurants. This is going to be great.” Then I got hired as a Jungle Cruise skipper. (Shani & I laugh)

But it was perfect because it was a perfect opportunity to understand a little more about the structure of the company. A very structured way to learn about guest service and the importance of training and having values and standards. Those Disney standards and the Disney values were aligned so closely with my own that I knew that after having that experience I wanted more of that so I spent a summer here on the college program… a lot different though.

In Florida I was joined by about 2,700 other students at one time. It’s a huge program. Here there was 162 of us, so a little bit different experience, and I did work in Food and Beverage here.

I worked at Coke Corner, a refreshment corner, and I poured cokes and flipped hot dogs all day, and I smelled like hot dogs and Coca Cola syrup and I was still really hungry for hot dogs at the end of the day.

SW: Were you really?

GM: Oh, yeah. When I was working here at Carnation Café I’d bus tables. I was a busser, but we still had the fountain for Carnation Café. I would just be so hungry after clearing all the dishes and seeing the traditional fountain cups and the tin banana split boats. I just thought, “This is just the coolest.”

Shani: (Shani used to work in foods at Disneyland) I used to crave the burgers, too. It was terrible. And as a lead I had to test it to make sure the ice cream wasn’t too hard or too soft.

GM: Of course. This is a food business… this is like the coolest gig!

SW: So, you were with the college program…

GM: Yes, it was a little different program, 162 students. It was much less structured. The program was more what you made of it and I got an opportunity to tap people on the shoulder and say, “Hey, what is it that you do? Can I spend the day with you?” and do this for many different areas.

That really got the bug going for really wanting to work for Disney because I think I came to the realization that you can have multiple careers within the same company, even at the same site. So that really fueled my desire to come back and work for Disney. I finished up my degree and actually was offered a position right out of college as an entry level Assistant Manager at the time, so supervisor or whatever. We’ve changed the terminology… it’s Guest Service Manager now to be official, but at the time it was called Assistant Manager and it’s entry level salaried leadership.

I started at Tomorrowland Terrace because my background had been in QSR’s (Quick Service Restaurants) with McDonalds so hey, why not do TWO thousand burgers an hour.

So I moved from QSR’s to the outdoor vending group and I opened up California Adventure, had a ton of fun and experience doing that.

Then I actually left the Food and Beverage organization and I moved into Human Resources which I had zero training in. But, it really was all about project management so I kind of took the experience that I had opening up a new theme park and I applied it to training. I got a chance to play with that a little bit. A systematic approach to doing stuff.

I did that for awhile and then moved back into Food and Beverage but not in Operations. I moved in a department that was called Business Solutions. Actually at the time it was called Business Reinvention and Initiatives… with cheese. (We all laugh) It was the longest title. Actually, part of my work there was to change the name. (We laugh)

It was like Project Management for foods but in that role I had exposure to all styles of service in Food and Beverage organization because we did consulting work for them. So we would put in guest service programs about how do you complete the guest meal? How do you introduce priority seating (like reservations) for the resort? All these things that touched multiple styles of service gave me a chance to dive deep and learn more about different areas that I hadn’t specifically operated.

From there I actually moved into the Director role for the hotels and I was the Director for hotel restaurants for the three hotels and then resort banquets, so the banquet operations and then from there I moved into this role. It’ll be three years this fall.

Now I head up the restaurant operations for the two theme parks.

More from Gary:
A very magical memory
Disneyland's Club 33

See other interviews

NOTE: The views and opinions expressed by the participants in the interviews are solely those of the interviewee and do not necessarily reflect the views of Mouse Clubhouse. Mouse Clubhouse accepts no legal liability or responsibility for any claims made or opinions expressed within.