Rainforest Cafe Is Coming to the Empire State Building

Rainforest Cafe is coming to New York next month, with a pop-up version of the restaurant at the Empire State Building. It will be installed on the 86th-floor Observatory Deck from Wednesday, October 3, to Sunday, October 6. Ticketed reservation slots between 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. are available for sale online. Eater has reached out for more information.

Earlier this week, Cha! Cha! the tree frog made the rounds on TikTok, hinting a New York City coming was in store. On Wednesday, September 18, a video showed the frog mascot entering the Manhattan skyscraper.

The partnership with the real estate icon appears to have started as an April Fool’s joke. In April, the Empire State Building posted that the “highest” Rainforest Cafe of all time was on the way this summer; it was only after seeing the virality of the fake news that the team sought to make it real, according to an Empire State Building release. The Empire State Building’s website states that it’s an “‘April Fools’ no more.”

Since the inception of Rainforest Cafe, the themed, animatronics-outfitted restaurant has been beloved by Americans of all ages.

Steven Schussler opened Rainforest Cafe in 1994 inside the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota, later detailed in his memoir It’s a Jungle in There: “He dreamed up the restaurant’s concept in the late ’80s, fusing his love of animals and passion for the rainforest conservation cause — which had reached a fever pitch at the time — with his entrepreneurial zeal,” Eater wrote. At its peak, the chain had some 45 restaurants worldwide.

Today, only 23 are listed on its website, including locations in Disney and as far-flung as Dubai. The forthcoming pop-up won’t be the only Rainforest Cafe in all of New York state — there is currently one in Niagara Falls.