This involves movies and food so I’m guessing this is the right place for this.
Today’s IMDb poll question is How do you feel about the introduction of non-traditional theater food (hot dogs, nachos, pizza, etc) into the current moviegoing experience?
Most folks are voting for it but I remember as a tot being at the drive-in with my folks and being fascinated in the snack bar by the hot dog, um, heater – the kind with the stainless steel tubes that make the dog roll over and over. Furthermore, I remember after the first feature they’d run a two minute spot for “Bambino Pizza” showing a teenage couple in a convertible snarfing down this cheese and tomato-sauce covered disk. We never got one (probably too expensive) and looking back on it, it’s probably just as well.
This, though, was circa 1955, a good forty-five years before two of the three “new” items mentioned in the poll – and I doubt nachos had been invented anywhere at that time. Was Phoenix that far ahead of the rest of the country in this one area? Was it because it was a drive-in theater instead of a sit-down? (We rarely went to the latter so I have no impression of what they offered) I put it to the SDMB folks: What kinds of unsual snacks were offered in theaters when you were a kid? Drive-in or siddown? When was this?
During my childhood in Clarksville, TN, my mom would make popcorn and lemonade and bring it with us to the Moon-lit Drive-in (now sadly defunct), so we rarely bought snacks from the concession stand. I do remember occasionally getting hamburgers there, wrapped in foil, but I don’t remember seeing pizza.
The most unusual movie snack-food I’ve had was dried squid strips in Seoul.
I like nachos and hot dogs in movie theaters, and plunk down the outrageous amount of money for them often. I’ve never been much of a popcorn fan.
Pizza strikes me as being somewhat impractible as a movie theater food. It’s a meal, for one thing, as opposed to a snack. I guess it would work for a drive-in, though.
I remember a movie theater exclusive food. “Flicks” - a tube of Ghiradelli chocolates that resembled flattened Hershey’s Kisses. Anyone else recall them?
In the 1970s I was sharing a house. One night we were cooking a big baked dinner and someone noticed a good double feature on at the drive-in. When dinner was ready we packed everything up in an esky to keep it warm, took crockery and cutlery and ate dinner at the movies. It was such fun we did it every now and then.
The true staple of Australian movie going is the choc-top icecream cone which has exixted since I was a kid and is still available today. Hot food is verboten here.
Wow! That’s earlier than I would have guessed. Still, at never heard of them (at least in Arizona) until the mid-60s at least, and they certainly were not offered as movie food. The other two were, though.
Did you all know that selling food in movie theaters is a post-World War II phenomenon? It really picked up in the 1950s, when television cut into theaters’ revenues. Today a large portion of a theater’s income comes from the concession stand.
I have had pizza, nachos and hot dogs at drive-ins, but never at a sit-in theater.
What I object to is a theater, I forget where, that serves “gourmet” food during the film (it was featured on Food Network’s Unwrapped). The last thing I want to hear at the movies is someone slurping down spaghetti while I’m trying to get watch the crapfest of the week.
But the wierdest thing I ever ate at a movie/drive-in? Texas-style barbecue! The drive-in owner’s snack shop had apparently closed (I assumed) and in order to keep things going, he invited people to come in and cook while the film was going on. The barbecuer had set up for 5 some-odd hours slow roasting this beef and was charging $5 for all you could eat!
I even got to take some home, since I ate so much!
There are several theater-pubs around here that serve pizza and beer while showing second run movies. I’ve seen hot dogs in theaters for a long time. Popcorn and soda at a first run megaplex are extremely expensive for what you can get them elsewhere. I can buy a ticket, slice of pizza and a pint at the theater pub for about the same as a one ticket at economy/matinee time and the megaplex. Dinner and a movie together. Forget popcorn and soda.
I worked for several years at a sit down theatre, starting in the summer of 1977. We had hot dogs then and nachos were introduced a year or two later. The hot dogs would often sit in the steamer for several days, if not a week or two at a time. (They were refrigerated at closing and re-steamed the next day until sold.) We employees knew to eat the hot dogs from the back of the steamer , leaving the old ones in front, which often had a greenish tint to them, to the patrons of the theatre.
I always thought that nachos were a little too messy to eat in the dark and the chips quickly got soggy from the “cheese” topping.
I remember seeing the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre at the drive in around the same time. My friend and I had consumed several Shlitz Malt Liquors and decided to get something to eat. We were the only ones in the snack bar and the girl behind the counter asked us how could we eat with that movie on. It didn’t affect our appetite for the pizza we ordered at all.
Here in Norway, chocolate and other kinds of candy – especially the kind you pick yourself, out of little drawers, and pay for by the gram – has been the staple since cinematography was invented. The last few years they have diversified somewhat, especially with the introduction of popcorn. That was considered, by many, a distinctly American influence, and seemed at first rather alien and, well, American; Popcorn, in this country, has traditionally been found, along with cotton candy etc., at fairs.
Last year at least one cinema in Oslo started selling hot dogs. So we’re getting there.
It was strange visiting the US and seeing hot dogs and chocolate being served, but almost no candy in the self-serve format so popular in this country. (In fact, I was hard pressed to find any self-serve candy store in New York, and when I found one, it was mostly jellybeans and other silly stuff.) But you have butter dispensers. Yech.
(We also have Father’s Day, Valentine’s Day and Halloween now, thanks to you Americans plus a handful opportunistic Norwegian entrepreneurs.)
I don’t know where you visited, but here in DC self-serve candy at the theatre is pretty wide-spread. I’ve seen it at the AMC mutliplex at Eisenhower Ave in Alexandira, Va, at the Regal theater near me in Ballston, and theatres in downtown DC as well.
And the new E Street theatre has espresso and pastries!
You must not have been looking hard–we have those in DC and if we have it, then NYC has to because NYC has everything.
There are several threads in Cafe Society about how theaters make money; a search and reading is a very educational experience. Short answer is that most theaters don’t make money from running the films, at least not in the first few weeks. If it wasn’t for the overpriced concessions, they’d probably go out of business.
As it is, whenever I go to the movies, I usually make a point of buying something from the overpriced concession stand (usually a drink and a popcorn). I like to support my local theaters.
In order to support the theater, I get a diet soda to drink. I’m on the Atkins diet, so that’s the only thing I can have. I wish the theater would stock some items I could eat, then I’d probably buy it. I can’t eat that sugar free chocolate they’ve got–the last time I tried it, I had “bathroom issues”.
Heck, I was able to get beer and pizza during intermission at the Opera.
I prefer nachos when going to the movies… and if you don’t want the cheese softening the chips don’t put any on top… they usually come in containers with cheese in the corners. At least at the theatres I go to.