The second metro Atlanta store in the Texas-based chain of movie theater/fast casual restaurant hybrids called Studio Movie Grill opened with a twist in Duluth.
The new theater/restaurant will feature a line of central California wines bottled under the Studio Movie Grill Cellars label, including a cabernet sauvignon and a chardonnay.
It’s another example of the effort that the chain is making to demonstrate that it is serious about food.
“We put our high-quality food up against any casual dining restaurant,” said CEO Brian Schultz, “and the pricing is similar to Chili’s.”
The new theater is the latest in a trend of dinner-and-a-movie theaters opening in metro Atlanta that includes the AMC Fork and Screen in Buckhead and the CineBistro in Brookhaven.
With crabcakes and a kale and avocado salad among the offerings, Studio Movie Grill is many steps beyond roller-dogs and nachos.
“The genesis of the concept is based on upgraded theater food,” Schultz said, “but it evolved into a scratch kitchen with made-fresh-to-order high-quality food.”
The Studio Movie Grill chain includes 11 stores, seven of them in Texas. Schultz said the company decided to add another metro Atlanta theater after noticing the overflow at the Alpharetta outlet.
“At the Holcomb Bridge site, we were turning away 3,000 customers a week due to lack of seats,” he said. “That motivated us to get [another] location in the market.”
The Duluth theater, at 3850 Venture Drive, is built inside a renovated Circuit City building, and it includes 10 auditoriums, the smallest seating 70, the largest 300. In rebuilding the structure, “we took it down to the studs,” Schultz said, and created an additional building to house a “premium showcase” theater with a 60-foot screen.
Schultz said the question of distracting noise from diners clinking forks against plates has been addressed with careful attention to sound design. “The theaters are carpeted, wall-to-wall, and there are special sound-controlling walls, like in a sound studio,” Schultz said. “You walk in there, and there is no background noise.”
In that environment, “you don’t have to turn the volume up to get clarity,” he said. “You can have a lower decibel level but tighter controllable sound.”
