Last Updated on July 21, 2026 by Daily News Staff

For millions of Southern Californians, a visit to Six Flags Magic Mountain meant more than just riding roller coasters. It was a rite of passage—a place where families spent summer vacations, teenagers celebrated graduations, and thrill seekers chased ever-faster rides.

Now, one of the last remaining reminders of the park’s opening days is preparing to disappear.

According to KTLA, Los Angeles County has approved demolition permits for the former Laughing Dragon Restaurant, an iconic structure perched atop Samurai Summit that has overlooked Magic Mountain for more than five decades.

Although the building has been vacant since 2008, its demolition marks the end of another chapter in one of California’s most famous amusement parks.

A Restaurant with Deep Roots

When Magic Mountain welcomed its first guests in 1971, the building opened as the elegant Four Winds Steakhouse.

Unlike the quick-service restaurants common in today’s theme parks, Four Winds offered guests a sit-down dining experience high above the park, complete with sweeping views of the surrounding Santa Clarita Valley.

In 1988, after the opening of the park’s suspended roller coaster Ninja, the restaurant was renamed The Laughing Dragon, embracing the area’s Asian-inspired theme.

For years, it became a familiar landmark for guests making the climb to Samurai Summit.

Eventually, changing guest habits and the park’s evolving dining strategy led to the steakhouse’s closure in 2006. The building briefly operated as a Papa John’s Pizza location before closing permanently in 2008.

Since then, it has quietly watched generations of visitors pass by.

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More Than an Empty Building

To younger guests, the vacant structure may have seemed like little more than an abandoned restaurant.

To longtime visitors, however, it represented something much larger.

Magic Mountain has transformed dramatically since its opening more than 50 years ago. Wooden roller coasters gave way to towering steel giants. New technology replaced classic attractions. Entire themed areas evolved with each generation.

Yet the former Laughing Dragon remained—a silent reminder of what the park looked like during its earliest years.

For many fans, it was one of those familiar landmarks that helped connect today’s park with its past.

Samurai Summit Continues to Change

The demolition comes during a period of significant change for the Samurai Summit section of the park.

Nearby, Superman: Escape from Krypton closed in 2024 after decades of launching riders nearly 400 feet into the air. Meanwhile, Tatsu continues to dominate the skyline with one of the world’s most celebrated flying roller coasters.

Construction is also underway on Magic Mountain’s newest attraction—a Vekoma Thrill Glider Roller Coaster, expected to debut in 2027. While the park has not announced what will replace the Laughing Dragon site, many enthusiasts believe the area could become part of future expansion plans.

The Challenge of Preserving Theme Park History

Unlike museums or historic landmarks, amusement parks are constantly reinventing themselves.

Older attractions are removed to make room for larger, faster, and more technologically advanced experiences. Restaurants close as guest preferences change. Buildings that once bustled with activity can quickly become obsolete.

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From a business standpoint, redevelopment makes sense.

But every demolition also removes another tangible connection to the park’s history.

Many Disney attractions have been preserved through photographs, documentaries, and archives. Regional parks like Magic Mountain often receive far less historical attention, making the loss of original structures even more significant for longtime fans.

Looking Ahead

Magic Mountain has not revealed what, if anything, will replace the Laughing Dragon building.

Whether the site becomes part of a new attraction, additional guest amenities, or another expansion remains to be seen.

What is certain is that another piece of the park’s 1971 identity is about to disappear.

For those who grew up visiting Magic Mountain, it’s another reminder that while roller coasters continue to evolve, nostalgia often rides alongside progress.

Did You Know?

• 🎢 Magic Mountain opened on May 29, 1971.
• 🥩 The building originally housed the Four Winds Steakhouse.
• 🐉 It became The Laughing Dragon after Ninja opened in 1988.
• 🍕 It briefly served as a Papa John’s before closing permanently in 2008.
• 🏗️ The building sat vacant for nearly 18 years before demolition plans were approved.

STM Daily News Perspective

As someone who grew up in Southern California, I know that Magic Mountain wasn’t just another amusement park—it was part of the Southern California experience. While the biggest headlines usually focus on new roller coasters, it’s often the quieter stories, like the loss of a familiar restaurant overlooking the park, that resonate most with longtime visitors. Places like the Laughing Dragon became part of family traditions, first dates, school trips, and summer vacations. Its demolition is a reminder that every park evolves, but each change also closes another chapter of its history.

Join the Conversation

Have you ever eaten at the Four Winds or the Laughing Dragon? Do you have memories of visiting Magic Mountain in the 1970s, ’80s, ’90s, or early 2000s?

Share your favorite Magic Mountain memories in the comments below, and subscribe to the STM Daily News newsletter for more stories celebrating Southern California history, attractions, and the places that shaped our communities.

Related Links

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• KTLA – Six Flags Magic Mountain files demolition plans
• Six Flags Magic Mountain Official Website
• History of Six Flags Magic Mountain

Aarushi Bhandari, Davidson College

In the trailer for “Toy Story 5,” a little girl named Bonnie is playing with her toys when a package arrives in the mail.

She opens it to find Lilypad, a tablet for children.

The iconic toys from the series – Woody, Buzz Lightyear, the Potato Heads, Forky and Slinky Dog – then watch in dismay as Bonnie casts them all aside in favor of the bright tablet screen. Rex the dinosaur exclaims, “What? Extinction? Not again!”

The film zeros in on a uniquely 21st-century phenomenon: the “iPad kid,” a term used – often disparagingly – to describe a generation of children who grew up enchanted by screens.

A lot of the discussion around tablet use among kids shames parents, framing it as an example of lazy or bad parenting. Yet factors such as long working hours and lack of access to affordable childcare compel many parents to rely on tablets.

As a scholar of the attention economy – and also as a mom to a 4-year-old – I’ve noticed a disconnect between the resources U.S. society offers parents versus what’s expected of them in the digital age.

’ Woody, Buzz and the gang must prove that traditional toys still matter when Bonnie becomes captivated by a high-tech tablet named Lilypad.

The pandemic and the ‘square au pair’

When the first “Toy Story” came out in 1995, many single-income families could still afford to comfortably raise multiple kids. It was more common for new parents to live near their extended families, such as grandparents, to provide childcare support. Federal policies provided some low-income families with cash assistance that helped ease the cost of transition to parenthood.

Since then, parenting has become a lot more challenging. Single-income households with kids under 18 have steadily declined as wages have stagnated, forcing both parents into the workforce. At the same time, it’s harder to qualify for government benefits.

And even when moms do earn a paycheck, working moms experience what sociologists call the “motherhood penalty” – career disadvantages, such as lower wages and promotion barriers, due to childbirth – even as U.S. parental leave policies remain weak.

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So it’s hardly a surprise that fewer Americans are choosing to become parents under these conditions. But those who did have kids in the years leading up to 2020 ran smack into the COVID-19 pandemic.

The lockdown that started in March 2020 following the outbreak of the pandemic led to closures of schools and many workplaces. Many parents either worked from home or provided critical work in grocery stores and hospitals. Kids stayed home and schools transitioned to remote-learning models.

It’s important to remember that many institutions with social legitimacy and authority encouraged the use of tablets during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns.

School systems around the world normalized their use for remote learning. Children as young as 4 were given tablets, which gave their parents space to complete their own remote work and other household tasks, with some moms referring to it as “the square au pair.”

In this sense, the tablet became a form of school-sanctioned childcare.

Economic activity was minimally disrupted. Productivity hummed along. And the kids? Comfortably distracted.

For some households, there’s little choice

When lockdowns ended, tablets remained integrated into the education system. In 2021, 4 in 5 U.S. households with children had a tablet. Beyond schoolwork, kids also use tablets for activities, such as video games and watching TV.

The adverse impacts of excessive screen time in general has been well documented for decades. But scholars have only recently unpacked the specific harms of interactive tablet use among young children.

Children who use tablets are more likely to experience emotional dysregulation and dependency on screens. Researchers have also found tablet use among kids to be significantly associated with ADHD diagnoses.

At the same time, research shows screen time use among children is tied to social class.

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Parents from working- and middle-class households are more likely to rely on screens compared to high-income parents, who can hire childcare services, such as full-time nannies.

Parental education is also a factor. Americans generally have little grasp of digital hygiene – knowledge about best practices to minimize negative effects of screens. But households with parents who didn’t graduate from college are even more in the dark.

And while schools hand out tablets, most of them fail to provide students and families with a comprehensive education on the adverse impacts of excessive screen time.

In other words, this isn’t a Generation Alpha problem. Most people – adults included, with or without children – aren’t properly educated and informed about their choices around technology use. Yet adults continue to be shamed if they hand their kid a tablet. All the while, parents navigate the added burdens of challenging the educational status quo around tablets.

Frankenstein’s village

When work is the only sturdy pillar in a society where government benefits for low-income people, family ties and community institutions have eroded, tablets replace the metaphorical village – the web of social support that helps families thrive.

In pursuit of jobs or affordable housing, many young parents move farther from their extended families and the communities where they grew up. The working parents who are forced to rely on daycare – sending kids as young as a few weeks old – end up spending an exorbitant amount of money on the service.

Meanwhile, the persistence of traditional gender roles ensures that many moms still go home to a second shift: Working women continue to disproportionately cook, clean and care for children. No matter how overworked or exhausted some parents are, they cannot afford to hire help as the inflation and cost-of-living crises hit historic highs.

Big Tech takes advantage of this crisis with a “solution” that ultimately treats children as products, manipulating their emotions and mining their data. As I argue in my book, “Attention and Alienation,” children’s dependency on screens is a key component of the attention economy.

The earlier a life is monetized, the longer it is profitable.

“Toy Story 5” and its critical take on the tablet may be helpful. But it will take more than a blockbuster movie to protect small kids from the harms of too much screen time. Instead, I think it will require strong parental leave policies, expansive and affordable childcare access, fair wages and shared household labor.

In other words, there needs to be a full rehabilitation of the village.

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Aarushi Bhandari, Assistant Professor of Sociology, Davidson College

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Celebrate America’s 250th Birthday with Summer Deals, Savings and Prizes

(Feature Impact) America’s 250th birthday calls for celebration, and this summer, it goes well beyond backyard barbecues and poolside parties.

Watch this video to learn more

To help mark the milestone, Circle K is rolling out refreshing deals, new merch and exciting prizes as America’s Party Stop – the one-stop destination for summer value and fun. The free Inner Circle rewards program is your ticket to the party – join by downloading the Circle K app and creating an account.

Rewards members can enjoy any size Polar Pop for just 25 cents on July 1 at participating locations. Fans can also grab limited-edition merchandise like hats and shirts to show off their love for the iconic drink. From July 1-Sept. 1, anyone can play the new Scratch & Win game daily in the app for instant prizes with members unlocking exclusive eligibility for weekly cash prizes.

The fun extends beyond the store, too. Throughout July, you can support the American Red Cross by rounding up in-store purchases to help disaster relief efforts and first responders across the U.S.

Download the app, join the free rewards program and find more ways to celebrate America’s birthday by visiting CircleK.com/America-250.

SOURCE:

Circle K

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