Why is the food so bad AND expensive at movie theaters?

Whats worse is when I went to go see The Raid a while back at a local theater, they changed the drink concessions to "self serving" stations. They charge 7 bucks for a soda AND they want me to pour it myself? FUCK THAT

Leave the bong at home. That way you don't get the munchies and blow all your money in the theatah.

I generally avoid getting food at a theater, but sometimes I just go for it. Eating a tub of shitty, over-buttered popcorn is great occasionally.

I work at a small local chain theater and it's a pretty easy answer. The food sucks because it's cheaper, and we charge a lot for it because the studios take a giant percentage of our ticket prices (which are already ridiculously low), so that's the only way to make any money.

I don't think I've purchased a movie concession since Armageddon. . . Sneak in tacos, cheeseburgers, and a flask.

Popcorn is never as good as you imagine it will be though "Man Popcorn would be awesome right now!" and then you get it and you're like "yeah, its ok"

I work at a Regal movie theater. From what I know, we get little to no money from ticket sales unless we've had the movie for a month+ (even that probably varies) and that's rare for us. We have 10 screens and usually at least one movie always makes its way out for something new, rightfully so. For example, we got rid of Iron Man and After Earth the same day, Iron Man 3 had been out for over a month until we dropped it and After Earth/The Internship, two weeks or so. Anyway, the managers have absolutely no say in the prices, it's all corporate. Like everything, it's based on money and they do their best to bring people into buying their overpriced foods and it's our job to sell as much as we can.

Also our drink sizes: Small $4.75- 32oz. Medium $5.25- 44oz. Large 5.75- 54oz.

Honestly I'm not sure why the drinks are so big, they could make them smaller and raise the price, people will still pay. Everyday there are countless times when I'll tell someone the price of a combo, they sigh and say how it's bullshit. Without even having to say anything back, they'll eventually say something such as "Alright, just give me that then."

@thecreamfilling It's not uncommon to find large amounts of empty alcohol bottles after a showing or food snuck in. When Temptation came out, we had a showing at 11:30am or so and I found a shit load of Popeye's Chicken boxes and wrappers lol.

The food is more experience because that's where the theater gets their money from, not the tickets.

The price makes sense, that's basically the only way they can stay in business. What bugs me is that all of their foods are designed to make you thirsty so you have to get a drink too.

Which is why you're fucked on a "movie date".

1. Go to Target.
2. Buy a bag of candy and a bottled drink for approximately 5 dollars.
3. Put said consumables in woman's bag or (jacket) pocket.
4. Walk into theater and enjoy film.

I'm a bit of a cineophile, and the theaters here have really good popcorn, so here's my solution:

I bought a refillable bucket that I can use for 6 months. It cost something like $30, but when a large popcorn costs $6, 5 of those equals 1 of mine... plus, you can share it with friends. I'd say since I've had the bucket, amongst me and friends, it's probably been filled 30ish times since Iron Man 3 came out.

And you just sneak in a drink, obviously. Not that hard to conceal a soda, or if you're like me and want bottled water, just find out what brand the theater serves and buy one at the grocery store.

It's pretty simple. You cant bring food in- so they can charge what they want and know a lot of people will pay it.

It's no biggie; I look at going to the theater like going to an amusement park. I expect it will be over priced and I budget for it.

I have a small confession to make, though. I really love movie theater hot dogs. I just wish they were bigger- they are expensive so I always get 2.

I know, i'm a bad person. I cant stand pop corn though and the movie theater nachos are gross.

On that note, I live in Austin and there's an awesome movie theater here (called The Alamo Drafthouse) and it is a restaurant and movie theater in one so you can order food while you watch the movie. It's fantastic, I just wish they had more movie selection. They more often have older films, or movies I don't want to see at that one and not all Alamos have the restaurant.

To be fair, when they have older movies they're usually classics (their action classics are always the best stuff) but when it has an older movie I want to see its on a day or time I cant go due to work or its an older movie I don't feel like watching.

Edit: You guys realize that the big movie studios actually own most Movie Theater chains, right? Seriously: Sony owns one, Universal owns one, etc. Granted there are smaller theater chains that are not owned by the studios (probably less these days but they still exist) but the big movie theaters are all owned by movie studios. So this concept that they aren't making money off the movies I find nonsensical. The theater may not be getting that money directly, but it's already owned by the studio that owns the theater so who cares?

Buy nachos or fries, hard to screw those up unless the kid making them spits on them :/ But yeah, like others have said the food is what keeps the ticket prices down so in the long run you're probably helping yourself by buying one overpriced drink when you go.

The pricey, shitty food doesn't bother me as much as the poor projectors, force fed commercials even though I paid for the fucking movie, and assholes who think they are in their living room on their phones. The movie going experience has been in steady decline since the 80s. I try to avoid the theater anymore.

I've never bought anything other than the biggest size of popcorn (comes with a free refill) and a Icee. If i want candy I would pre bring it with me.

Go to somewhere like Muvico where the food is actually. Still expensive.

I live in a place where it's winter a lot. So one time my friends and I got French fries, chicken fingers, soda, and just duct taped them to different parts of my body. In my heavy winter clothes, no one could tell. It was amazing.

Interesting. Makes sense too. And there's a chance employees themselves don't know that they work for a studio owned theater.

Slip in some clever statistics about theaters getting back a low percentage of ticket sales and garner sympathy. Works for the used games argument.

That hasn't been the case since 1948 when the Supreme Court ruled that things such as theater ownership was a form of virtual monopoly, and in turn caused the studios to sell off the the studios. As a result of this, nearly all of the major Theater Chains are either publicly traded corporations, owned by foreign conglomerates, or in the one case where there is common ownership (National Amusements and Viacom/CBS), they are run as separate entities, with little to no interaction between the two.

@intro: I also worked at Regal as a manager for 3+ years. It is a horrible company but it wasn't all that bad. I worked projection a lot and was there for when we switched from 35mm Christies to Sony 4K's - that was interesting, since Sony didn't develop any software for us to go along with the projectors but we were on a schedule so we started running shows on basically alpha software that was clearly designed by engineers.

The fun times we had with dropped shows cause the projector just turned itself off midway through, oh boy. Not as bad though as that one time we interlocked Iron Man at three different auditoriums, except it was a 35mm print so we ran it through 3 projectors at the same time and naturally it burned. It was like 200+ refunds.

I remember reading something about movie theatres being exempt from certain mark-up laws. Apparently you can't sell something for over a certain percentage of it's worth (say 500*%; eg: cost Company A $1000 to make something, they can only sell it for up to $5000). Movie theatres however can have over 1000% mark ups on their products. Hell, a jumbo box of popcorn costs about 0.30cents, they sell it for $8 or $10.

*Not the actual percentage but I couldn't be bothered looking through consumer laws to find it.

i hate eating in the cinema.

nothing spoils the atmosphere more than someone sat next to me grazing there way through a mound of popcorn or crunch on some fucking crisps.

eat before you go

Yeah, the corporate is horrible, but the work isn't bad and fortunately at mine, all the people are really nice and friendly. I can't complain for it being a part time job while I go to school for now.

We also switched from film to Sony 4K digital. Both have been a hassle but now things are much better since we have it all working, plus the digital all start the showings by themselves. When you have film, someone has to go up there and set it all up. I actually learned how to thread the film into the projector, that could be a pain but I didn't mind it. During the summer the film would get so hot sometimes it would stick and mess things up terribly.

Also if people knew exactly how "food" is handled in a movie theater you probably wouldn't buy any of it.

Popcorn is popped continuously throughout the day so thats usually fresh.

Nachos are in large bags and staff eat them all the time so thats fine.

Anything that requires heating up - I wouldn't recommend it. Not to mention that policy dictates that syrup for sodas should be changed out before it expires but sometimes you just forget.

The MAN is trying to bring us down!

I don't remember the last time I bought something other than popcorn and drinks at a movie theater.....

It's like people have said, theaters barely make anything off of ticket sales so they have to upcharge for shitty food.

A solution to this problem is sneaking food in. I was with a friend once when he managed to sneak in a two course dinner from a Chinese restaurant next to the theater. The sky is the limit.

Gas stations have a similar business model. They don't make most of their money on gas, it's all the stuff they sell inside that keeps them going.

I thought movie popcorn was supposed to be the best? I hate popcorn so I can't really say, but that's what I've always been told.

Anyway yeah I just sneak in candy and buy a large drink, though $5 for a soda is ridiculous. Gotta make money somehow, I guess.