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Author Topic: Food and Beverage Cassandra Palko Film Handler Posts: 30 From: Menomonee Falls, WI USA Registered: Jul 2009 posted 08-30-2009 03:21 AM                        Popcorn, Soda, Nachos and Candy are the basic staples of every cinema I know. It was all we had at my first theatre. The "competition" down the street had pretzel bites, warm cookies and hot dogs. We added cotton candy... Over time menus grew to be more and more diverse. Pizza, Coffee, Dippin Dots, White Castle and many other items that can be produced with the use of the almighty Turbo Chef. The theatre chain I work for now has full scale in-theatre dining complete with table service and a bar. We have another location that operates an Italian restaurant in the lobby. We call these places our F&B (food and beverage) locations. How many of you work at locations with menus that extend beyond the normal concession items? Anybody else with cocktail lounges?  |  IP: Logged Andy Bajew Expert Film Handler Posts: 136 From: Bellaire, Texas Registered: Jun 2009 posted 08-30-2009 08:24 AM                     I work at the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema -- it is a dinner and movie style theater. Full menu and beer/wine selection. The desserts are the best part. Sounds like my theater is like yours. We employ servers and food/drink runners so that we can service the customer inside the theater like a restaurant would. Everything on the menu is a finger food (burger, chicken tenders, wings etc...) so that there are no noisy utensils to mess up the presentation.  |  IP: Logged Cassandra Palko Film Handler Posts: 30 From: Menomonee Falls, WI USA Registered: Jul 2009 posted 08-30-2009 10:39 PM                        How many screens do you have? I like the idea of ALL finger food so that there are no noisy utensils to mess up the presentation. Most of ours is finger food - but we have salads - served on big heavy plates and the fork clinking has shown up on customer comment cards as a complaint.  |  IP: Logged Wayne Keyser Master Film Handler Posts: 272 From: Arlington, Virginia, USA Registered: May 2004 posted 08-30-2009 11:12 PM                     My local "drafthouse-type" one-screen cinema started as just that (movies for a buck, beer and basic bar food [think 'fryolator']). It did reasonably well for years. Maybe 4 years ago they upgraded the food (added sandwiches and basic wine and broader beer selection) and upped the admission in stages to $5.50. They also added live entertainment, starting with irregular local comedy jams, and new-sideshow/new-burlesque nights. Starting about a year ago, Fridays/Saturdays they have national-name comics at the 9:20 show (early and late movies), and they took over a failing restaurant in an adjoining building, and made it both the drafthouse's kitchen and an independent lounge/grill. They recently added programming to the lounge (ain't bigscreen TV's wonderful?) - family-friendly matinees and some evening baby-friendly showings, Comedy open-mic Saturday evenings, family-friendly night Sundays, bizarre/schlock/psychotronic film night Wednesdays (all free admission), and small-time pro stand-up comedy Thursday nights. The drafthouse still cranks out its own bar food (I think) but the full grill menu is available. Here's the cinema/drafthouse - http://www.arlingtondrafthouse.com/ and here's the grill - http://www.oldarlingtongrill.com/ - you can check out the menu.  |  IP: Logged Cassandra Palko Film Handler Posts: 30 From: Menomonee Falls, WI USA Registered: Jul 2009 posted 09-01-2009 07:21 PM                        Does anybody run a dinner and a movie multi-plex? There is one near me that has 3 screens of in-theatre dining and I know of another being built with 5 screens.  |  IP: Logged Andy Bajew Expert Film Handler Posts: 136 From: Bellaire, Texas Registered: Jun 2009 posted 09-01-2009 07:55 PM                     quote: Cassandra Palko How many screens do you have? We have seven screens. Our total seating capacity is around 1000 or so. We also have salads, but they are a less popular item. Thankfully we have bowls for them that don't make tons of noise and the silverware is prewrapped so there is no clanking until the customer touches it  |  IP: Logged Monte L Fullmer Film God Posts: 8367 From: Nampa, Idaho, USA Registered: Nov 2004 posted 09-03-2009 03:03 AM                     What I'm curious about with these "Movie Grill" complexes that serves alcohol in a public place like this, how do they get around with the minor prohibited law thingey to get their alcohol license?  |  IP: Logged Chris Slycord Film God Posts: 2986 From: 퍼항시, 경상푹도, South Korea Registered: Mar 2007 posted 09-03-2009 03:17 AM                     It would depend on what the local law actually is. And while I am no lawyer, I don't see why a movie grill would really be treated differently from a regular restaurant. It's just a restaurant that happens to play movies. And for local laws... I remember back in Washington they (at the time) had a law specifying that if the majority of the revenue came from alcohol then the place would automatically be treated as a bar, with only 21+ allowed.  |  IP: Logged Andy Bajew Expert Film Handler Posts: 136 From: Bellaire, Texas Registered: Jun 2009 posted 09-03-2009 06:15 AM                     Well my work being the Alamo Drafthouse, we advertise that we cater to a more mature crowd, therefore you can't see a movie if you are under six with no exceptions and you can't see a movie if you are 18 and come alone. We have tons of different licenses to be able to sell beer/wine/sangria/etc... We can only employ people 18 and over for that reason.  |  IP: Logged Sam Graham AKA: "The Evil Sam Graham". Wackiness ensues. Posts: 1431 From: Waukee, IA Registered: Dec 2004 posted 09-03-2009 12:59 PM                        quote: Monte L Fullmer What I'm curious about with these "Movie Grill" complexes that serves alcohol in a public place like this, how do they get around with the minor prohibited law thingey to get their alcohol license? The Warren balcony operations have a strictly 21-and-over admission policy. Not sure about the Old Town conversion.  |  IP: Logged Aaron Mehocic Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 804 From: New Castle, PA, USA Registered: Jun 99 posted 09-05-2009 06:46 PM                     Many years ago a theater in the chain I work for had a liquor license and offered draft beer in its stand. It was a college town so one might think big sales. In actuality, it hurt sales in the stand because the staff was spending more time carding and less time effectively getting customers served. In my opinion, beer is not a concession item and has no place in a regular movie theater. This "drafthouse" concept, however, is different.  |  IP: Logged Edwin Schwing Expert Film Handler Posts: 116 From: Las Vegas NV Registered: May 2002 posted 09-06-2009 04:39 AM                     Aaron, don't you already card for Credit card sales? If not you should! I can't see where that would add (or take away) from sales.  |  IP: Logged Alex Edwards Expert Film Handler Posts: 114 From: Iowa Registered: Aug 2009 posted 09-08-2009 09:21 PM                  At our theater we started frying various things like chicken strips, cheese sticks, and curly fries. The funny thing is so far the fried stuff has been more popular with the employees than with the customers because the employees like them and the customers generally just with the regular stuff.  |  IP: Logged Caleb Johnstone-Cowan Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 593 From: London, UK Registered: Mar 2006 posted 09-09-2009 07:31 PM                     We had something similar at a place I worked at with Paninis. The staff discount on concessions was 40% so they worked out a lot cheaper than the food outlets near us. I don't think any customers ever bought them. I don't see how asking for ID causes queues, customers must expect it especially in the USA, maybe it was because I was 21 when I visited but we got carded everywhere. We serve alcohol in bottles on the stand. They are a good addition to the range and I reckon as more people become used to the idea of drinking in the cinema we'll sell more and more. Is an ice cream stand at the cinema a common thing in the USA? We have a Ben and Jerry's franchise, as do most of our sites. I end up working there most busy shifts, pretty easy job but the queues can build as we also serve normal stand items from the tills.  |  IP: Logged Mark Hajducki Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 500 From: Edinburgh, UK Registered: May 2003 posted 09-12-2009 01:08 PM                     The profit on beer/wine is likely to be a lot less than the traditional items sold on the concessions stand due to the higher duty payable on those items and the higher cost price. It would be worth establishing whether selling alcohol cannibalise sales of the high profit soft drinks. The same would apply to some types of food, especially those which need to be delivered freshly, and cooked to order. quote: Caleb Johnstone-Cowan We serve alcohol in bottles on the stand. Do you decant it into plastic cups before people take it in? The cinemas round here which have bars, but not special premium seating, insist that glass is not taken into the screens. Collecting broken glass will slow down the cleaning of the screen, and the bar may then get short of glasses.  |  IP: Logged

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