Vol. X, No. 4, June-July 2010
Hybrid bowling and dinner & movie concepts grow in popularity
Hybrid bowling, combining bowling with other entertainment options, including family entertainment attractions and cinemas, continues to grow in popularity. Another expanding out-of-home entertainment concept is dinner and a movie. The 48,000 square foot CinéBistro by Cobb Theaters at the Peninsula Town Center in Hampton, VA that opened this June combines both concepts. The facility is basically a combination of an upscale cinema with what is called a bowling lounge.
The eight theaters all have 40-inch leather seats with swing-away dining tables. At the back of each theatre, some seats are coupled together into love seats. There are nine lanes of ten-pin bowling. Movie tickets at prime time cost $12 and bowling after 6pm and all day on weekends is $6.50 per game and $4.50 for shoe rental. Food is new American bistro-style with entrée selections such as BBQ Pork Steak Stack for $16.5 and Chicken Arugula for $16.5. The least expensive selection is Penne Fra Diavolo for $13.5 and the most expensive a New York strip steak for $22.5. The selections also include main dish salads starting at $14.5 and sandwiches starting at $11.5. In addition to the theaters and bowling, CinéBistro includes a bar and lounge. To maintain the adult atmosphere, no one younger than 21 is admitted after 6pm.
If you want to dine in the theaters, you need to arrive 30-minutes before the show. Once the movie starts, the wait staff will not come into the theatre.
This is the 4th CinéBistro to open, but the first to include bowling. The country’s first combination restaurant, bowling and cinema is believed to be Starmax in Deming, New Mexico, which opened in 2007. iPic Entertainment, located at the Bayshore Town Center in the greater Milwaukee, WI area, followed in 2009
The CinéBistro is the latest example of the combination of different entertainment attractions into new hybrid combinations that belong to the eatertainment trend – come for food and stay for the fun.
Our company is current working on three different hybrid bowling center projects and also a cinema-bowling-FEC combination.
