EPCOT city would have had a tiki resturant
It's common knowledge that Walt Disney had elaborate plans to build EPCOT not as a theme park but a true experimental city in the swamplands of Florida. For many years, the plans have been the stuff of urban legend, with collectors trading fuzzy VHS dubs of The Florida Project movie in order to try to get a glimpse of what "The Old Maestro" had his Imagineers working on behind closed doors.
One of the earliest revelations Disneyphiles had is that Walt had been working on ideas for EPCOT as far back as 1966. The second floor of the attraction he created for GE at Disneyland, The Carousel of Progress, contained a massive model of Walt's city of the future, "Progress City." Lo and behold, when the plans for EPCOT were revealed to the state of Florida, Progress City was EPCOT.
Over at The Imagineering Blog, in an article covering the current state of the Progress City model (which was cut down and moved to Walt Disney World), they've made an amazing rediscovery: EPCOT was going to have a tiki restaurant and bar. It's still on the model today, but so close to the glass that even though I've personally ridden past the model hundreds of times, I've never seen it. (Click the image for a larger version.)
As seen on the model, the restaurant would have been situated on a small peninsula in a man-made waterway, accessible by both car and watercraft. A sweeping double A-frame roofline with large glass windows would have afforded an amazing view of both the shopping and entertainment corridor and the city center.
Now I'm even more sad that EPCOT, the city, failed. I could be typing this from the living room of my ever-upgradable, single-family home, with the unnamed bar just a short WEDWay Peoplemover ride away.
See more pictures and read A look at the Progress City model then and now at imagineeringdisney.com