“But you know what the funniest thing about Europe is?’
“What?” “It’s the little differences. I mean, they got the sames – – – over there that we got here, but it’s just, just, there it’s a little different.” “Example.” “Well you can walk into a movie theater and buy a beer. And I don’t mean just, like, in no paper cup. I’m talking about a glass of beer.”
– “Pulp Fiction” dialogue
At a mere 8 years of age, little Mark Stern had a vision, and “Pulp Fiction’s” Vincent Vega just described it: beer in a movie theater. The concept was completely alien at the time, at least in the United States.
“In 1968, I told my dad it would be a great idea to have wait staff take your order before the show and bring you a drink,” Stern recalled, then added proudly, “I’ve always had an entrepreneurial spirit.”
Twenty-eight years later, in 1996, when he was 36 and running his family-owned Wilmette Theater on the North Shore, he tried implementing his dream. He failed. Although some cities, such as Los Angeles, allow beer in movie theaters, and Stern’s customers enthusiastically supported the idea, village trustees unanimously killed the plan. The trustees cited concerns about community disapproval and the ease with which alcohol could wind up in the hands of minors.
Yet Stern keeps on dreaming. Though Wilmette is probably “too conservative” to ever implement the idea, he said that if the right opportunity came along, he would seize it.
“I’m talking about showing art films, serving great California wines and quality beers, having champagne screenings, and taking movies to another level,” he said with all the gusto of someone whose family has owned and operated theaters for more than 50 years. “It’s not a crazy idea. It’s not a radical idea. There’s a stigma because it’s new. But it’s the wave of the future.”
At least one other independent theater owner, Ron Rooding, who manages the Village North theater in Rogers Park, has similar plans. He was born in Europe, still visits frequently and loves what he sees in the movie theaters there: reserved seating, ushers and, of course, the availability of alcohol.
“It enhances the experience of going to a movie,” he said. “At a play, at any legitimate theater, you can get alcohol. So why not at a movie? It would make it more of a night out.”
Rooding says he hopes the Village North will be serving alcohol by next summer. However, like Stern, Rooding must also appeal to his community, and also like Stern, he faces opposition.
The Village North, at 6746 N. Sheridan Ave., sits in the 9th precinct of the city’s 49th Ward, a precinct that has been dry since 1936. During the summer of 1996, Rooding managed to get on the ballot a measure to repeal the ordinance, but it lost 142-126. Active opposition, he said, helped sink the measure.
Andy Barrezueta, captain of the 9th precinct who campaigned door-to-door against Rooding’s plan, said he would oppose any move to bring alcohol into his neighborhood.
The rowdiness factor
The next referendum will be March 17, 1998 — if Rooding gets enough signatures on petitions. Ward Ald. Joe Moore said that even if voters turn the precinct “wet,” he would be skeptical about endorsing Rooding’s request for a liquor license because he fears “rowdiness.”
“People having a beer while watching a movie is a lot different than having a beer with a meal,” he said. “With people drinking, and especially in something like an action movie, things could get out of hand.”
Stern and Rooding both admit to having more than artistic interests in serving alcohol — they have financial stakes too. With the planned merger of Sony Theaters and Cineplex Odeon (which has yet to be approved by the federal government), and the tendency of such chains to build “megaplexes” with as many as 30 screens, the industry continues to become increasingly concentrated, and independent theater owners fear their own demise.
For example, Moore said Cineplex Odeon has signed a lease to build a multiscreen theater in a new retail development at Howard and Clark streets, just north of Rooding’s Village North Theater.
“Independently owned theaters showing first-run movies will be gone,” said Stern. “We have to do something to compete with the big corporate chains.”
Alcohol may just be a start, eventually joined by other novel ideas such as coffee bars and maybe even full-service kitchens so patrons will be able to enjoy dinner in the soft glow of all the blood, guts and salty language Hollywood can muster on screen.
Though alcohol served in theaters has mostly been restricted to the independents, the General Cinema chain is going to try it next spring when it opens a new 18-screen theater in suburban Lombard.
Page Thompson, the General Cinema’s vice president of marketing, said only one of the screens will have accessibility to a lounge serving alcohol, and that minors will be strictly prohibited from either the lounge or that theater. Thompson said he was unaware of any opposition.
“There are so many competing entertainment options out there, we’re trying to provide one-stop entertainment,” he said. “We are always doing research on what our customers want, and they wanted this kind of adult experience.”
The concept of serving alcohol in chain theaters doesn’t seem quite ready to become a rage yet, though.
No bar interest
Cineplex Odeon, with 1,592 screens nationally (and owner of 40 percent of the market in Chicago), has had a theater in Los Angeles that has been serving alcohol for the last 30 years, but Freeman Fisher, the company’s vice president of studio relations, said the bar is so underutilized that most times it isn’t even staffed. He said the audience Cineplex Odeon caters to with its almost exclusively Hollywood-produced first-run movies isn’t interested in alcohol.
“We have other priorities,” Fisher said. “People aren’t interested (in the bar) because they’re not in the mindset. And we have mommies coming in who don’t want their kids exposed to alcohol.”
While Stern, Rooding and others wait, the marriage of film and booze has already taken off in a slightly different vein. The Vic Theater at Belmont Avenue and Sheffield Street offers “Brew and View” on nights when the theater isn’t hosting concerts (which is most nights). The concept is simple: a movie theater meets a bar. Patrons sit at tables and chairs, free to drink draft and bottled beer, smoke, and cheer wildly when their favorite characters appear on screen. The concept dates back to the early 1980s and can also be found in cities such as Atlanta, Salt Lake City, New York and Portland, Ore.
When Brew and View opened in 1992, it showed movies favored by its owners (the first ever was “Terminator”) and found few takers. However, when the Vic turned to hipster films like “Singles,” “Swingers” and “Dazed and Confused” (which ran for 26 weeks), the seats filled. Co-owner Barry Schain said attendance has increased every year.
Celluloid, a bar at North Avenue and Wood Street, opened earlier this year. Unlike Brew and View, it shows films from videotape, with visual quality no better than that of a television. But the crowd is mostly quiet, the screen reasonably large and the seating in rows, which gives the product a certain theater-like aura.
“Movie theater bars are going to be it,” said Celluloid owner Dion Antic. “They’re going to be a lot more long-term than the cigar bars. . . . It’s going to be eye candy with a martini.”
Yet theater owners like Stern and Rooding insist they envision something far more upscale.
“(Brew and View) has loud obnoxious people,” Rooding said. “You can hardly hear. It’s not a theatrical performance.”
Both Stern and Rooding said they do not want to sacrifice the movie theater experience for a barlike atmosphere.Both said drunkenness would not be tolerated, but that’s not expected to be a problem.
“Art films get an older audience,” said Stern. “Plus anyone under 30 would be carded.”
