Sunday, February 8, 2009

i'm just not that into restaurants at movie theaters

i would like to start by saying urban sprawl is not my favorite thing and i try to avoid visiting places (west chester) that seem to be intent on swallowing land with parking lots and o'charley's (i have no idea how to make that plural. not even going to try). this includes florence, ky. but since my girlfriends live there, i must go. that's how i ended up at the florence showcase, which offers the glamorous lux level. on the lux level, food and cocktails are brought to you before and during the movie. i pictured something like the cinema grill, but it is actually seats with trays that pull out or something. i'm not entirely sure how it works, because while we had planned to get lux level seats (which are $10 more than regular tickets), they were sold out.
instead we watched our movie (he's just not that into you) and ate afterwards at chatters, the restaurant inside the theater.
chatters is very similar to an airport bar, mediocre over-priced food included. i had the applewood blt on sourdough. the bread was good. overall it was acceptable, but the fries had a kind of funny taste. the cocktails were expensive for what they were. a couple of my girlfriends ordered martinis at $9.50 a pop. my absolut kurrant and tonic was $6, which is a bit more reasonable.
the whole experience was a little strange, especially since there is not a bathroom in the restaurant and you have to walk past the ticket taker to find one. i don't think i'm a fan. i am curious about the lux level, but i don't know how i feel about paying $20 for a movie ticket and then buying food on top of it, even if the food is a bit more filling than nachos and snow caps.
and p.s., "he's just not that into you" was better than i thought it was going to be, based on the critics' reviews. kind of cute and bubbly. everyone gets what they deserve in the end, good and bad.

5 comments:

FoodHussy said...

saw the movie too - agreed - hit a little close to home...but was funny...

re: lux - scott took a date - he does not recommend - the movie ticket is overpriced but you get a coupon for food and the food isn't that good either... he also said the trays are weird to sit and eat because you're leaned back like a movie theatre seat but need to sit up to eat - he said it was weird and expensive and not very good...

5chw4r7z said...

I ate at the Chatter's up in Springdale before a movie and surprisingly it was better than I'd thought it would be. We had got free tickets through Zipscene or I never would have drove up there. We have free tickets again for the Florence location and I was wondering if they'd have restaurant there.

Anonymous said...

Funny, a friend of mine has been bugging me to take her here. So thanks for the report.

And I guess I have to say that as much as I like the idea of dining/drinking during a movie, I can barely handle popcorn without making a huge mess. Hmm.

k said...

through the whole movie, i was thinking, "oh my god, i've totally done that"

i wished i had the cocktail to deal with the biographical aspects of the film

Ginger said...

THANKS K!!

My husband was talking about doing something like that for Saturday. Now I know what to say... They only good thing about OCharleys is the happy hour... have a good week.

Ginger