| rev:text
| - Oh Studio Movie Grille. How I wanted to love you. So let me tell you a story about a magical place called EpiCentre Theaters. It opened in (I think) 2009 and changed everything. It was different from any other theater I'd ever heard of. Sure you could have food inside the movie, drinks even. But you purchased them unobtrusively at the bar and brought them in yourself. No waiters scampering about, no muss, no fuss. And even better - reserved seats! For someone who loves movies and opening nights/weekends, going to the movies can be kind of a nightmare. But not when you can buy your tickets a week in advance and guarantee your assigned seat. Boom. Peace of mind like nothing else. Ten pm opening of The Avengers the night before its official release? Done. Showed up five minutes before the movie to get my beverage and I was all set. No waiting in line for two hours, no battling crowds. And the SEATS. Like sofas in their plush glory. Oh, and no kids allowed in evening shows on weekends. Yep. So then it closed. And I was devastated. DEVASTATED. It was going to reopen under the Studio Movie Grille model. Hmm. I quickly researched what that was and my heart sank. It's one of those chains that tries to copy the Drafthouse and has wait staff inside the theater. Dammit. Ok, but maybe it's not that bad. MAYBE it'll work. Maybe they know something I don't...
So last night was the opening of Captain America: Winter Soldier. I got my advance tickets and reserved my seats ages ago. Woo. This wasn't my first rodeo at SMG as I've been several times and I always hate it. I keep going back for the reserved seats (still a thing) and the location (my hubs and I both work uptown and live 10 mins away). It seems to me that it just doesn't HAVE to be this bad.
We got there last night and grabbed drinks from the bar. The bar service is ok, though they never have one of the wines on the list that is actually one of my faves. Since it opened, they've had this wine exactly once. TAKE IT OFF THE LIST. We hung out in the lobby drinking our drinks, biding our time til we had to go into the theater and deal with the wait staff. It was the first Alive After Five event of the season so the Epicenter was a total nightmare (for low-key people like us) and I wouldn't have gone anywhere near it if it weren't for Cap and reserved seats. We eventually made our way in, got our seats and I decided to run to the bathroom before the movie started. I had to go to the fourth stall in before I could find a use-able stall. This is one of my biggest peeves with the place. The bathrooms are both falling apart/rundown and always dirty. It was nasty.
We ordered some popcorn before the movie started and it actually came out pretty quickly. We've been burned by the service so many times I never know what to expect. My first time there, a drink took 40 minutes to arrive. After the movie started, there was the usual distracting murmur as people continued to order stuff and the waiters continued to use their iPhones to place the orders and ask questions, etc. It's REALLY distracting. (At least at Cinebarre, they have a whiteboard you write on when you need something and only talk if they really don't understand something. Also no iPhones.) Another customer in the theater was using HER iPhone as a flashlight to read the menu. Sigh. It's not just the wait staff I guess.
This continued the whole movie, which is very typical. There are a few basic problems with the model. 1. It wasn't built with this intention. It was built as a normal movie theater. At Cinebarre and Drafthouse, the seating is set up with a step down in front of each row where the servers walk without blocking the screen. This is not the case here. Every waiter, every trip up/down the steps blocks the screen. 2. The servers are all completely inept. It's like it's everyone's first job. They don't understand the basics of either common sense OR service. They will nag you for the check, which they always bring during the important climax of the movie. If there's an issue with the check which you need to discuss after the movie, they'll argue about it also during the movie. Last night the waiter handed my husband the check across my face (which he didn't see because he was watching the movie), blocking the screen during an important scene.
All in all, the only thing I go to this theater for is the convenience of my reserved seat. That's it. If they ever got rid of that, I'd probably never go back. It's the ONE thing nobody else does. There are other theaters that sell/serve alcohol. There are other theaters who serve non-popcorn food. But nobody else lets you reserve an assigned seat. And that is 100% all this theater has going for it.
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