Medieval Times
Dinner and a tournament: jousting knights on horseback, a whole roast chicken eaten with your bare hands, and a whole section of the arena screaming for its color-coded knight. The birthday-and-field-trip institution that a Jim Carrey movie made unforgettable.
The medieval dinner-tournament concept began in Spain in the late 1960s before a Spanish investment group brought it to America, opening the first US "castle" in Kissimmee, Florida, on December 16, 1983, near Walt Disney World. The format was pure spectacle: guests are seated in color-coded sections, handed a feast to eat with their hands (no utensils, by design), and cheer for their assigned knight through jousting, sword fights, and horsemanship.
Through the '80s and '90s the chain expanded across North America — the New Jersey castle in Lyndhurst opened on Valentine's Day 1990 — becoming a staple destination for birthday parties, school field trips, and "you had to be there" family nights. It fixed itself in '90s pop memory thanks to The Cable Guy (1996), whose manic Jim Carrey drags Matthew Broderick into a full jousting duel at Medieval Times. (For the record: it's The Cable Guy, not Ace Ventura.)
With castles still operating across the US and one in Toronto, Medieval Times endures largely unchanged — the same feast, the same knights, the same hoarse cheering for the knight in your section's color.
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