Movie Food

When I first moved to Richmond, it was squarely during the mid 90s. In fact, it would be tougher to bisect a decade more precisely: the move-in date was December 31st, 1994, which bled straight into January 1st, 1995.

One day, I was a resident of South Carolina, where I had lived my entire (minuscule) life up until that point, and then the next day, I was a Virginian. Suffice it to say, I needed a job, which was apparently something I did after I moved to a place back then. Today, that seems backwards, but I was up for some adventure.

After briefly performing as a sandwich artist, a non-Subway job opportunity fell into my lap. There was a movie theater that served food and beer, and my girlfriend had just gotten a job there. She suggested I apply for the open role of pizza delivery driver, since one of their drivers had just quit. I did just that, and I was quickly hired, complete with my trusted steed, my 1984 Ford Escort.

That car died in a puff of black smoke on the side of the road while I was out delivering pizza. Kids, if you’re looking for an easy way to make money and pizza delivery sounds like a good idea, just keep in mind that there’s always a trade-off. Therefore, I was open to new types of employment there at the Movie Café.

I was able to secure some hybrid employment situation where I cooked food for customers, and also made popcorn and poured drinks.

Now, I’m not the only person named Andrew here who has worked in a movie theater. In fact, fellow Substacker

Andrew Sniderman

has crafted a little tale that compliments my own movie theater days quite well. Here’s Andrew describing his time on Hollywood Boulevard during the early 80s:

The Chinese Theater, Egyptian Theater and El Capitan were the premier theaters on Hollywood Boulevard when I was growing up. I saw some good movies in those theaters - Star Wars, Alien, Star Trek, E.T., Rocky, Night Shift, and Flashdance.

The Chinese Theater was the biggest and I worked there a couple of summers in High School. The first summer I worked concessions; the second summer I graduated to usher. This story is about the first summer.

Ticket revenue goes to the studio, but the theaters keep the concession money so they step up their game when it comes to food. The Chinese is a grand old theater - it’s got a big pavilion in front full of movie star handprints and signatures imprinted in concrete. Adjacent to the big theater, were two new theaters that we called the Twins. My first job was making popcorn in the Twins.

The twins had a spacious lobby with an offset square concession stand in the middle so you could sell popcorn on all sides. Behind the concession stand was a room the size of a walk-in closet - the popcorn room. Two big popcorn machines faced off against each other surrounded shelves of concession inventory and popcorn fixings.

The popcorn machines fed on five gallon drums of popcorn grease. Flip the switch and the machine squirted a shot of oil into the pot. Thirty seconds later, I’d dump a scoop of kernels in. When the popcorn started banging on the lid I’d tip it open so the popcorn could spill out into the bin in the middle between the two machines. Then I had to time the subsequent full pot dump - trying not to burn myself on the handle - before the popcorn started to burn. With both machines going full bore I didn’t always get that quite right but over time I burned less. When the bin was full, I used a big scoop to transfer the contents into white garbage bags.

I also learned to make popcorn when I graduated to the coveted “bartender” position, and I remember this machine we had, just like the one Andrew describes. It would churn around and you would put this luminescent orange goop into a cylindrical bin at the top of the popcorn box that was ultra-hot and spinning.

You had to respect this dangerous zone. The watchword was splatter.

Back over to my fellow Andrew:

It was a complex operation. At the beginning of my shift I’d hang up my orange polyester uniform top and get to making and gorging on popcorn all day. I’d swig frothy orange drink from the concession stand (it got hot in that room) from a 100-ounce #10 can. During my break I’d go watch movies - Rocky III and Eye of the Tiger played all summer long.

Those fringe benefits! I also ate plenty of popcorn, although as a cook I had access to other food, so tended to mix it up quite a bit. By the time of my own movie theater service, the prominent films on display were the likes of Pulp Fiction, Twister, and Contact. I loved watching and rewatching some of the better movies (and even some of the terrible ones) while enjoying beer, something that seemed so novel as to amuse me to no end.

Here’s Andrew again:

I’d drag the bags up to a storeroom above the main Chinese theater for the evening shows. The concession stand in the big theater was squished into the back of the lobby and it got nuts during weekend shows and premieres. A day of popping - thirty bags would get gobbled up. Sometimes the last bags in the storeroom would have holes in the bottom from mice getting in on the action, but oh well.

The Movie Café was gross. This place was on its way out of business by the time I got there, but I didn’t fully grasp how close to the precipice it was until it closed down about 2 years later. I have written a bit about some of the gross things I’ve done or seen, including this collaborative piece with chef

BrianAlfred1983

, so I won’t belabor all of that here, but let me just say that I saw actual maggots living in that kitchen one time.

I’d walk home with the smell of popcorn wafting behind me, imbued into every pore.

I do not miss smelling like popcorn and “fried.” Fried what? Doesn’t matter. Just “fried.”

Back over to Andrew to bring us home:

This face wasn’t meant to be hidden in the popcorn room, so pretty soon I graduated into the concession stand during the night shift, where we served more than popcorn.

The frothy orange drink went really well with … nachos. A Plexiglass case sat on the counter full of the saltiest chips with neon orange cheese sauce to ladle over it, set in a heater that thickened it throughout the day. Our trick was putting some jalapeño juice to thin it and kick it up a notch.

Hot dogs of course. Squeezed out of slimy bags and set under more Plexiglas they rolled naked kept warm between metal rolling cylinders. Towards the end of the shift when you didn’t want to crack a fresh bag, someone would always buy that one that’d sat there rolling in the deep all day, developing complex patterned thick wrinkly skin. I was 17 and didn’t bat an eye scooping one up betwixt a warm bun now crunchy from a day in the hot drawer. Ketchup will take care of that.

Naturally, we also served nachos at the Movie Café. Toward the end of the life of the business, the idea was to get everything to stretch farther, so we added water and corn starch to thicken the nacho cheese. I’m not proud of participating in this, but honestly there was plenty to be not-proud of from those days.

I saw a lot of these cost-cutting measures, and I learned an awful lot about how not to run a business, if I’m being honest. Those days taught me a ton, but like Andrew, I really enjoy remembering the specifics… and the good times… and these times were really amazing for both of us in so many ways.

If you’ve got the bandwidth, go check out Andrew’s Substack. He writes about tech a lot, but there’s plenty of this sort of storytelling and conversational humor.

And, if you’ve also worked in a movie theater (even if your name isn’t Andrew), we want to hear from you today! What sort of foods did you serve, and what was playing in the theater when you were working there?