Holiday Inn Club Vacations has opened Stone & Current at Orange Lake Resort to the general public, moving its premium steak and seafood concept beyond its captive vacation-ownership audience and into the competitive Central Florida dining market. The restaurant is located in the resort's River Island area at 12031 Spences Trace Drive in Kissimmee and is open for dinner daily from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m., with weekend brunch Saturday and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., and a lounge open nightly until midnight.
The timing is deliberate. Stone & Current debuts inside Visit Orlando's Magical Dining, presented by Orlando Health, running August 14 through September 30, 2026 — a proven local-demand driver that now counts 180+ Orlando-area restaurants in its roster. The program offers diners a three-course prix-fixe dinner at $40 per person, plus tax and gratuity. For a new concept with zero name recognition outside the resort's guest base, the promotional umbrella provides immediate credibility and foot traffic that an independent launch would take months to build.
The Operator Angle
This opening is a case study in resort F&B repositioning. Vacation-ownership properties have historically treated food and beverage as an amenity line — a convenience for guests rather than a standalone revenue channel. Opening to the public flips that calculus, turning the dining room into both a profit center and a brand-awareness vehicle for Central Florida residents who may never book a timeshare but will return for a well-executed dinner. Thad Gregory, Senior Vice President of Resort Operations at Holiday Inn Club Vacations, framed the dual audience plainly: the concept is meant to welcome both on-property guests and outside diners discovering the restaurant for the first time.
The menu positions Stone & Current in the affordable-premium tier that has proven resilient in post-pandemic casual-fine dining: fresh-cut steaks, seafood, curated wine, handcrafted cocktails, and signature desserts. That positioning maps well against the Magical Dining price point — $40 prix-fixe sits at the accessible end of the premium segment, reducing the trial barrier for first-time guests.
Program Economics and Community Tie
The Magical Dining structure also carries a cause-marketing component operators should note. In 2026, $1 from each $40 meal and $2 from each $60 meal benefits OCA, an organization supporting individuals with autism and developmental differences, with Visit Orlando directing additional donations to six related nonprofits. For resort F&B operators weighing community-benefit programming, the built-in nonprofit alignment of a regional dining promotion can substitute for the standalone cause campaigns that require separate budget and logistics to execute.
For operators managing hotel or resort F&B in drive-to leisure markets, the Stone & Current launch is a readable playbook: anchor a new concept inside an established promotional program, use the prix-fixe structure to lower trial cost, and target the local dining public as a growth audience independent of room-night occupancy. Operators in comparable resort corridors — think Branson, the Smokies, or the Poconos — are watching the same dynamic and looking for their own version of a regional dining program to plug into. Connecting with destination-marketing organizations early in a concept's development, rather than after opening, is the intelligence gap most resort F&B teams still underestimate.
For more on hospitality dining trends, see our coverage on menu and beverage strategy for resort operators and brand launch frameworks for new restaurant concepts.
Written by Michael Politz, Author of Guide to Restaurant Success: The Proven Process for Starting Any Restaurant Business From Scratch to Success (ISBN: 978-1-119-66896-1), Founder of Food & Beverage Magazine, the leading online magazine and resource in the industry. Designer of the Bluetooth logo and recognized in Entrepreneur Magazine's "Top 40 Under 40" for founding American Wholesale Floral, Politz is also the Co-founder of the Proof Awards and the CPG Awards and a partner in numerous consumer brands across the food and beverage sector.
