Movie theaters have come a long way over the years. Comfier seats, better picture and sound, and booze in the lobby. But while I’ve seen food in a theater, I’ve never quite seen a theater like Roadhouse Cinemas in Scottsdale. You see, Roadhouse Cinemas doesn’t just have a food, they have a full on restaurant in which you can order at and then choose whether to eat at the restaurant or in the theater with fancy seats and trays that rotate out.
Fortunately, we arrived with plenty of time to sit down and eat. The burgers looked good to me and I ordered one called the Tombstone. It was topped with bacon, cheddar, lettuce, tomato, onion, BBQ sauce, tobacco straws (aka fried onion strings) and chipotle aioli. I ordered mine without the lettuce, tomato and regular onions, and also kept fries as my side.
I was a little concerned when I wasn’t asked how to cook the burger, and these fears were confirmed when my burger arrived. Because while it looked pretty, and the ingredients weren’t all bad, the patty itself tasted like it had been frozen and never thawed before being overcooked on the griddle. Actually, that’s probably overselling it, because it was also pretty small. And all of this would have been fine, really, if I was at some fast-casual spot paying fast food prices, however, this was more at the gastropub price levels.
On the other hand, I was paying for the luxury of eating my meal at the movie theater, which probably would have been better had I been actually eating during the movie because I had run out of time. I hadn’t, though, so for me (and probably just about everyone else) I would have been a much happier man had I just stopped somewhere else ahead of time.
