First Look at Universal Studios Hollywood's New 'Main Street'

February 20, 2016, 9:16 PM · Universal Studios Hollywood this morning took down the construction walls on one side of its new "Main Street."

Universal Boulevard

The new Universal Boulevard entrance street includes two new shopping and dining venues, plus space for a new venue to be revealed later. None of the locations are open yet, but with the construction walls down, we are getting our first good look at their exteriors.

The biggest venue on the newly refurbished street is an expanded Universal Studios Store, which is being stocked with all sorts of park merchandise.

Universal Studios Store

The second venue is a large new Starbucks Coffee location. It extends all the way down to the start of the construction wall, on the path toward Westminster.

Starbucks Coffee

Behind that construction wall is space for another venue in the new development, which has replaced the old "Soundstage 13." That building most recently housed the Universal's House of Horrors walk-through attraction, before its demolition last year.

On the other side of the Universal Boulevard, work continues behind construction walls on the Hollywood & Dine restaurant that is replacing the old Hollywood Grill. Universal's guidemap says that location will be open next month.

Of course, all this work is in preparation for the official opening of The Wizarding World of Harry Potter and the big media event promoting that park expansion. The media event starts April 5 with the official opening of Potter on April 7. For those of you following the #PotterWatch, the Wizarding World again was soft-opened for "technical rehearsal" on Saturday, though Universal closed the land to new entries before 4pm.

Replies (11)

February 20, 2016 at 10:09 PM · Hopefully this signals that Universal will redo the entrance into Universal Studios Orlando also. The present Production Central entrance is ironically, the only part of the park that is downright ugly and somewhat dated. The rest of the park is very attractive.
February 21, 2016 at 6:34 AM · I want USO to get this...
February 21, 2016 at 9:34 AM · You know, I am a little surprised that Starbucks is in Universal (or Disney didn't block Starbucks).
February 21, 2016 at 9:59 AM · The Universal Main Street looks Hollywood-ish without the usual backstory that Disney does. They should give it a name.
February 21, 2016 at 10:04 AM · Such as... the Southern California street where Carl Laemmle arrived in 1914? ;-)
February 21, 2016 at 10:41 AM · This kinda looks like Main Street and Buena Vista Street combined with a few elements from Hollywoodland.
February 21, 2016 at 11:32 AM · Starbucks has been in Universal Studios Orlando (NY area) for a long time. They've recently expanded to IOA, Citi Walk and some of the hotel resorts.
February 21, 2016 at 11:35 AM · Laemmle Street would work.
February 22, 2016 at 12:06 PM · Actually, the first two Starbucks opened within 4 days of each other in July 2002, USF first, followed by CityWalk. The new CityWalk location was a relocation of the original
February 22, 2016 at 9:53 PM · Universal and Disney also both sell Dipping Dots. Disney can't block nor can they resist the power of Starbucks and Dipping Dots.

Can someone check the toilet paper in the bathrooms and make sure its different? If it's not Disney should block Universal from using it.

I was really disappointed that Disney did not get Starbucks to to put coffee cups in each scene of Carousel of Progress (More Starbucks is progress) or Ellen's Energy Adventure (The future of energy is Starbucks) and offer a $99 Starbuck ride cupcake package that only Disney can do. I would actually ride those busted up relics if I got to drink Irish coffee and eat cupcakes on them

February 23, 2016 at 5:58 AM · Whatever happened to the hotels that were supposed to be built? The Fung Lum was torn down a couple of years ago but there's still no construction activity.

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