A $4,000 trip for a $75 plush toy pancake: Inside the Jellycat Diner craze

It's 2025 and Karli Johnn is behind the counter at the Jellycat Diner, talking into a plush hot dog — like it's a phone — while a pretzel dangles from her apron.

The teal and white, retro diner inside New York City's iconic FAO Schwarz toy store is cookin'. Customers wait in a snaking line, studying the Amuseables "food" menu before their turn at the counter. Then they order and watch as a pizza slice or waffle plush gets "cooked" in a frying pan atop a glowing toy burner before being boxed up and placed in a to-go bag.

The whole to-do — very much a phones-out affair — lasts about 10 minutes or less, if you're lucky enough to snag a reservation. Not to mention having $75, which is the starting price for such a service.

My daughter, then 10, gets pulled into the act. She's handed the pan and encouraged to flip her plush pancake higher and higher. She's a very happy customer.

Nearby, another employee — who we're told is "TikTok famous," just from her job there — handed a customer a bottle of syrup, threw her head and upper body back on the counter and let the customer pretend to pour syrup straight into her mouth.

That's the point: At the Jellycat Diner, the plushy is a small part of what customers are buying. The rest is a performance, one that some families travel hundreds of miles and spend thousands of dollars to see.

And NYC isn't the only place the brand — founded in London in 1999 and known for its supersoft plush toys — has turned buying a toy into a moment. They have experiences in cities around the world , each built around its own playful food or retail concept.

And behind those few minutes of theatrics are workers like Johnn, an actor, who says the job is "basically 100% improv": reading customers, riffing on the fly and keeping the energy high as the same plush pancakes cycle through the kitchen over and over.

The retail worker is really the star of the show

Johnn, who worked at the diner in 2025 while completing her degree at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts, was a fan of Jellycat going in, but what caught her attention was the performance element.

The job sounded "silly," "fun" and "right up my alley," she says.

Even the application process hinted at what they were hiring for. Applicants could submit an optional 30-second video explaining why they wanted the job. Johnn did, and says she was later told the company loved it because the role was "all about personality."

According to Johnn, most of the people working at the Jellycat Diner were performers in one way or another. There were certain required steps — how the Jellycat was boxed, bagged and presented — but employees were encouraged to "let your creativity shine."

Employees riffed off one another, engaging in what Johnn describes as a "friendly competition" to come up with new quips and build on one another's banter. They might essentially be doing the same routine over and over — during a "cooking hour," she'd cook up about 20 Jellycats — but the goal was to make each one feel fresh and spontaneous. (Employees also spend shifts running the register and managing the line.)

Customers frequently film the interactions, which she estimates lasted about three minutes per toy. Sometimes, Johnn says, she'd surface in TikTok videos. But that was part of the job: putting on a performance that felt special to the person in front of her.

Customers fly to NYC for 10 minutes at the counter

Tiffany Whitefield flew from Oklahoma to New York City for the experience earlier this year.

Her teen daughter is a diehard Jellycat fan. Once she learned about the diner, she wanted to go badly enough that Whitefield first secured a reservation, then booked flights around it.

"We flew there just to go to the Jellycat Diner!" Whitefield tells Yahoo.

Getting the reservation was difficult, with slots released in limited batches. The trip was pricey: roughly $4,000 total. The pancake Jellycat itself cost about $75.

Whitefield admits there was a moment when she thought the whole thing was "absolutely crazy," but says she wanted her daughter to have the experience. And she did — see how she handled having pancakes playfully tossed at her.

Looking back, it's the staff that stands out most.

"My favorite part was the interactions with the employees," she says. "I swear [they] are like actors and actresses. They were so funny and … interactive. It was definitely worth it."

Johnn, who now works on the Off-Broadway immersive production Masquerade , says she came to think of customers as her "scene partners."

Greeting each group, she'd ask herself, "What kinds of jokes can I make? What kind of energy are they looking for?" Some wanted big theatrics. Others mainly wanted the video, toy and to move on — after all, FAO Schwarz is massive with the famed piano, beauty makeovers and a make-your-own Funko Pop! station.

Sizing up group after group felt like "a masterclass in acting," she says. And she had to be "on" regardless of how she was feeling. After all, she was a college student enjoying NYC nightlife.

"Some days, you're going in tired and you're walking into the most stimulating environment in the world," she says. What helped was the atmosphere itself: "There was so much joy in the store."

She also kept in mind what customers like Whitefield had gone through in order to get there. "It was like, OK, I want to give them a fun time ," she says.

For all that performing, it was still a retail job. Johnn earned $21 an hour, a rate she considered "pretty good." Tips weren't part of the setup, though customers occasionally slipped some cash to employees.

The harder moments came when the performance gave way to customer service. Families sometimes showed up without realizing reservations had to be booked in advance, and telling them — and their tearful kids — they couldn't participate could be a lot.

"People would get very upset," she says.

The job also gave Johnn a front-row seat to just how much people were willing to spend. She remembers one child getting "six stuffed animals at $70 a pop."

From her perspective, however, it was more about parents spending to create an experience for their kids, something she found "sweet to see."

Johnn says one thing that surprised her was seeing older customers visit the counter — "just as many adults coming in as kids," she says. "In fact, maybe more."

The teacher put the diner on the itinerary for her 40th birthday trip to New York City with her husband, without her kids in tow.

"I have always loved Jellycats, and this was one of my bucket list items for our trip," she says.

About a month before the trip, Dills logged on the day reservations were released and repeatedly refreshed the page until she landed the date and time she wanted.

At the store, she ultimately spent $140 on two plushies: the hamburger and an exclusive milkshake. She also had a laugh at her husband, who misunderstood the outing and thought their reservation was to eat actual food.

Dills also said the employees were a big part of what made it feel like more than a shopping trip.

"They were all extremely energetic and stayed in character the entire time," she says.

But her visit also came with a reality check: Despite having a reservation, she says she waited about an hour past her scheduled time and watched VIP customers bypass the line.

She's glad she did it. But unlike Whitefield, she wouldn't necessarily go again.

"Although I loved the experience, I wouldn't pay for it again unless it was for one of my kids," she says.

As for me, I apparently fall into the repeat-customer camp. After our successful pancake procurement, I've already booked another reservation for when my niece visits from Australia.

By the time we go back, the diner will look different. The FAO Schwarz location has just undergone a big renovation, with a refreshed experience and a new menu.

We definitely don't need another stuffed pancake. But that's not really what it's about. The stuffy is the take-home, but the performance — and memory of going with family — is what makes it one of a kind.