One of the restaurants at the newly opened Universal Orlando Resort Epic Universe property is Das Stakehaus. Looking for a tasty bite to eat? This restaurant has some great offerings.
An Epic experience
Epic Universe opened mid-2025 to much earned fan fare. The park is a semi-traditional hub and spoke design theme park. We visited this great location when traveling to the Orlando Florida area in November 2025 and walked away spinning.
While Epic Universe is still really new to us, that does not change that there’s some very revolutionary things going on at this new location. Will the glitz and glam of new wear off over time? Sure. But after our first visit, we’re reserved to return for more.
The park is broken up into four distinct different lands, or “universes” with the central area being its own themed area — Celestial Park.
Our trip to Epic Universe and Das Stakehaus
Epic Universe was towards the top of our list during our last Florida adventure. We stayed on Universal property, at the Cabana Bay Beach Resort — which we loved. While also visiting the area we did pop into the 2025 EPCOT Food and Wine Festival as well as other attractions.
Being brand new to the Epic Universe experience, we did not really know how to handle things like dining. Universal does things a bit differently than Walt Disney World Resort when it comes to dining and there are quite a few hybrid dining locations — quick service meets table service.
When it came to lunch time we settled on Das Stakehaus mainly because it looked good and we were already in the Dark Universe land in the park.
Dark Universe
There are two main rides and attractions in Dark Universe — Monsters Unchained: The Frankenstein Experiment and Curse of the Werewolf. Walking around the land visitors are immersed in a village from a bygone era. The theming is spot on.
In addition to Das Stakehaus, there’s another restaurant, also quick service, The Burning Blade Tavern.
Das Stakehaus
“Shrouded in mystery, Das Stakehaus is an old inn and dining hall built over the ruins of ancient catacombs,” Das Stakehaus’ webpage states. “Here you can enjoy a meal surrounded by vampire artwork and artifacts. In fact, the restaurant is run by vampires’ ‘familiars’, or servants. Just don’t venture down to the catacombs below, or you might find yourself on the vampires’ menu.”
Walking into Das Stakehaus you’ll be greeted by a team member who will take you to a table. The themed restaurant is dark and spooky. Everything within is dripping with a vampire vibe — naturally. The large tables and chairs are slightly clunky but emblematic of Victorian Era Transylvania.
Ordering
While at the table, you’ll have to scan a QR code to call up the menu and order your meal.This has become a common way for ordering food at some Universal Orlando Resort restaurants. If you’ve dined at The Leaky Cauldron or Three Broomsticks at Universal Studios or Islands of Adventure, respectively, you know how this system works. As a sidebar, we also dined at Pizza Moon for dinner — review forthcoming — and they utilized the same system.
Coca-Cola Freestyle machines
One thing about Epic Universe we noticed is they utilize Coca-Cola Freestyle machines. They’re pretty much all over Epic Universe and the other Universal Orlando Resort properties. When it comes to drink delivery, the Freestyle machines reign supreme over any other system we’ve seen — and we’ve seen quite a few. Forget about the Pepsi machines that are out there that Great Wolf Lodge uses.
Menu
The offerings at Das Stakehaus include different hand helds, salads, and “stakes” — offerings that come skewered like a kabob. Other entries include pork belly, wings, meatloaf, salmon, and two different desserts.
What’d we order?
Everything that was on the menu was fairly unique, at least for adults. Our junior adventurer just ventured on with a plain cheeseburger, which was nothing to write home about. The fairer of my roommates got the Bits and Pieces, a meatloaf dish. I opted to get their themed burger, Das Burger.
Das Burger
This was a neatly themed culinary delight. The Das Burger is a “seared Angus burger with tomato pepper chutney, dill pickle aioli, white cheddar cheese, grilled onions, hot cherry peppers, jalapeño bacon, on an artisan bun with fries.”
The flavor pairings were spot on with the chutney and grilled onions adding a bit of sweet, to go up against the spicy savory of the remaining ingredients. The “artisan bun” is a purple/black color and is a perfect touch.
Overall, this was a mighty good burger and it was served with steak fries.
Bits and Pieces
The Bits and Pieces is on the stakes menu. Going against what would normally jive with her pallet, the eldest of my roommates got this meatloaf dish.
This is no ordinary meatloaf or something that you’d get from grandma’s house. The Bits and Pieces is a “seared and glazed wild mushroom brisket meatloaf, with charred green onion mashed potatoes, roasted baby carrots, acorn squash, crispy maitake mushrooms.”
The glazing, whatever it is, gives the meatloaf a softer flavor contrasting the fattier brisket of the meat. The medley of vegetables were good — if you’re into those things. And, the mashed potatoes were surprisingly good for being at a quick service theme park restaurant.
Overall experience
This was a great restaurant. We weren’t looking for giant meals, but honestly, the two main dishes we got were more than satisfactory and beyond. The flavors of everything were spot on and our service was pretty good. Universal Orlando Resort is one of our favored locations in the Orlando area. While we’re still big WDW fans, Universal is becoming more relevant as our junior adventurer advances in age.
We’ll be covering our 2025 trip to Epic Universe more here at TSRs.
