Safari Park offers breakfast with tigers

ESCONDIDO — Move over Shamu, you’ve got company at the breakfast table this summer.

On Saturday mornings through mid-August, the San Diego Zoo Safari Park is offering a Breakfast with Tigers event at its new Tiger Trail exhibit. For $45 (plus admission), up to 50 diners can nosh on pastries, eggs, bacon and pancakes just steps away from the park’s collection of six Sumatran tigers. Similar to SeaWorld San Diego’s Breakfast with Shamu killer whale program, the tiger breakfast — held before the gates open to the general public — offers animal lovers an up-close look at the big cats without the crowds.

The first Breakfast with Tigers was held Saturday, and drew a near-capacity crowd of visitors from as far away as Seattle.

A buffet breakfast was served from 8 to 9 a.m. in the Tiger Trail exhibition’s Sambutan Longhouse, where diners can sit at tables beside the glass walls of the tiger enclosure. Every few minutes, one of the tigers would prowl curiously along the glass and stop briefly to peer through at the camera-toting diners. Head tiger keeper Lori Hieber entertained the group with tiger facts, then presented a behavior demonstration where she fed meat treats and milk through a steel gate to Conrad, one of the park’s 2-year-old male tigers.

Hieber said the usually furtive tigers are more active in the early mornings and at dusk, and they don’t seem at all bothered by the crowds who have been filling the $5.4 million exhibit since it opened in May.

On Saturday, Ron and Taffy Phelps of Menifee said they were excited to be among the first to experience the tiger breakfast with their 12-year-old son, Alex, who arrived in a T-shirt covered with cats.

“I have an obsession with all kinds of cats, and this place allows me to get up really close to the tigers. I love it,” Alex said.

Joe and Elaina Ferro of Pasadena were vacationing in San Diego last week when they read about the breakfast and decided to add it to their itinerary.

“We’ve never been to (the Safari Park) and we decided this was a good reason to come,” Joe Ferro said. “It’s amazing to see them so close with nothing but glass in between us. They’re amazing creatures. It’s really worth the money.”

Seattle resident Tami Teller was visiting the park for the second time in a week and the breakfast offered her a way to get an early start on what she said would be a full day at the Safari Park. And longtime San Diego Zoological Society members Wayne and Pat Johnson of Fullerton decided the new breakfast was a good reason to drive down to see the exhibit.

“We had seen the tigers in their old enclosure a couple of times and wanted to see the new one, so this was a good incentive,” Pat Johnson said.

Breakfast with Tigers is being offered at 8 a.m. Saturdays through Aug. 16. Advance reservations are recommended. The park’s regular summer hours are 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. Breakfast is $45 plus admission, which is $46 for adults and $36 for children ages 3 to 11. Parking is $12. The San Diego Zoo Safari Park is at 15500 San Pasqual Valley Road, Escondido. Call (760) 747-8702 or

sdzsafaripark.org.