The Ahwahnee hotel dining room is reopening in time for Christmas

The dining room at Yosemite National Park’s Ahwahnee hotel is scheduled to open just in time for the Christmas rush.

Hotel officials began notifying waitlisted visitors this week that the dining room, adorned with chandeliers, stone walls, a beamed ceiling and huge windows peering out into Yosemite Valley, will reopen for table service on Dec. 14. The announcement comes in the midst of a facelift at the iconic hotel, part of a multi-phase project that’s been met with weather challenges, unexpected delays and animal intrusions.

“We’re really excited to finally have it back next week after all of these days and setbacks in the project,” Yosemite Hospitality communications director Chelsie Layman told SFGATE in a phone interview.

In the interim, diners had been feasting on the Ahwahnee’s traditional American cuisine as buffet-style meals in the Great Lounge, Solarium and Winter Club Room.

Dining will continue to be buffet-style after the dining room reopens because workers are in the middle of a complete gut of the Ahwahnee kitchen, where contractors ran into a major problem during construction. “Last winter affected so many things,” Layman said. “With all of this snow, we were dealing with groundwater issues up until this summer. That caused an issue we couldn’t anticipate. When we were completely gutting and redoing the floors of the kitchen, they opened up the floor and there’s all this groundwater. So, you couldn’t really do anything until it dried up.”

Under the original kitchen floor — which sits about a foot off the ground — was fresh Sierra Nevada snowmelt. “I’m talking about almost a river flowing under the floor,” Layman added.

When complete, the new Ahwahnee kitchen will feature a new concrete foundation, kitchen floor, reimagined layout and almost entirely replaced equipment. For now, huge mobile kitchens parked outside the hotel continue to run service until the main kitchen project is finished some time in spring or summer 2024, Layman said.

Other issues that have plagued the project are due to its standing on the National Register of Historic Places. “There were things that weren’t captured in the blueprints,” Layman said. “Because it’s a historic building, it’s protected. If you go [into a wall] and find something that you weren’t expecting, there has to be a timeout.”

The hotel’s historic status has forced contractors to scour the country in an effort to duplicate original building methods and materials as closely as possible.

There have also been a few animal surprises, as crews have run across old burrowing spots during work inside the hotel. However, those critters were long gone by the time contractors came across their tracks, according to Yosemite National Park spokesperson Scott Gediman. While he didn’t elaborate on the type of animal trying to “check into” the Ahwahnee, Layman said some Yosemite bears have gotten into food and kitchen shipping containers stored behind the hotel during construction.

“It’s Yosemite. Animals are always where they shouldn’t be,” she laughed.

The famous hotel, celebrated worldwide for its position in the shadow of Yosemite’s granite walls and magnificent waterfalls, has hosted many visitors since it opened in 1927. “That symbolism of creating excitement for national parks and showing the importance of them is really as much a part of the fabric and history of the Ahwahnee as the beautiful building is,” Gediman said.

Famous guests at the Ahwahnee over the years have included President John F. Kennedy, President Barack Obama and his family, Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Walt Disney, Charlie Chaplin and Judy Garland.

Steve Jobs and Laurene Powell were married at the luxury hotel in 1991.

The hotel’s classic interior even inspired the look and feel of the fictional Overlook Hotel in Stanley Kubrick’s “The Shining.”

The $31.6 million renovation project — funded by the Great American Outdoors Act — commenced in January and was originally scheduled to be completed by October, but that timeline has now been pushed back a few times. Work also includes a number of seismic upgrades to columns, chimneys and walls inside the nearly 100-year-old hotel, along with window upgrades in the Solarium and fixes to the pool.

Other parts of the project are now on track to be completed next summer, the last of which is expected to be an overhaul of the concrete terraces and patios surrounding the Ahwahnee. Parking at the hotel, which has been valet-only during construction, will return to an option of valet or free parking (if available) once the project is completed next year, Gediman confirmed.

“We knew the kitchen floor had issues and this other work needed to be done, so the idea was to do as much as we could at the same time,” he said. “It’s so much a part of the valley, so iconic and such a beautiful hotel. There’s been a significant amount of work done. Everything looks good.”