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"A So-So Film Goes Down Better with Farrelli Food"
Get Out Magazine - by Michael Grady
April 23, 2008 - Scottsdale, Arizona - Jack Nicholson is grinnin' a face-full of piano keys.
Five minutes into "The Bucket List," and the cinema is quiet and dark as the three-time Oscar winner sells
his opening scene with every ivory he's got. But you can almost see him looking around for a better script, and so are we.
The evening teeters toward "buyer's remorse" - when you and your date realize your $8.50
didn't buy all the sassy repartee the trailer promised - when someone heads my way down the aisle.
Do I need to get up? There's ample room, but the shadowy figure heads straight for me. Rising ominously
between Nicholson's squinty eyeballs, he slides me a plate of shrimp pasta, tells me to "enjoy," and is gone.
OK, I'm giving Jack another chance.
CLASSIC COMBO
"Dinner and a movie," the classic Tracy-Hepburn date night combo, never
dance closer than they do at Farrelli's Cinema Supper Club. Here in the
heart of a northeast Phoenix shopping center, the 7-year-old family
franchise serves appetizers, entrees and cocktails in the flickering
light of late first-run films.
It compresses the traditional one-two punch of a restaurant dinner,
followed by a trip to the cinema. Does that make the experience better, or more
like the "Forrest Gump"/Lean Cuisine night at my home Wednesday?
The answer lies mostly in the details: Farrelli's is fronted by a swanky bar. The
two auditoriums are nice-restaurant-meets-old-time-movie-house: velvet drapes,
dark wood, wide aisles and comfy, free-range chairs. Cinephiles used to playing "elbow chicken"
over the armrest will delight in their ability to slouch and splay. You could spin full circle,
with your legs outstretched, and not hit another patron. (But you could clip a waiter and wind up
wearing your appetizer, so just trust me on this.)
Dinner begins before the movie, and the artichoke and spinach dip ($7.95) was a sight to behold: golden
cheese, laced with green spinach and crowned with multicolored chips. It looked like a van Gogh sunset
and tasted delicious. When the movie started - without commercials or previews - we learn, quickly,
that two guys have cancer. So first round goes to the dip.
Supping and cinema blend very well here. Generous spacing means the 10-by-26-foot screen isn't
framed between the skulls of your neighbors. No scraping of cutlery can be heard, and waiters are
attentive without distracting. (You'll get one of those crazy, disco-ball coasters with a button
that allows you to call a waiter, and you won't use it.)
"The Bucket List" hits its stride about the time the entree arrives. So if you don't completely buy
Morgan Freeman's soulful everyman, shove a shrimp in your mouth and see if you feel differently. The shrimp and
penne in basil pesto ($18.95) was tasty and probably looked good, too. But it was served in the dark, so I have to
take that on faith. Held up to the screen - where our heroes are sowing their oats with a globe-hopping wish list
odyssey - I see that the shrimp are quite large, they are dusted with pine nuts, and Morgan Freeman has enormous pores.
In most cases, the food is better than the movie tonight. But the two elements play tag team, and your attention jumps to whatever is working well.
PAYIN' THE PIPER
"The Bucket List" actually finishes strong. It's one of those uneven films whose good
points make you wish they'd given the bad ones more attention. Dinner has a strong ending, too.
Farrelli's desserts range from apple strudel to creme brulee. But the entrees, and even the dinner
salads, are substantial enough to hold you through the closing credits.
The food, the spread-out feel and the leisurely pace of the meal are pleasant enough to make you wonder why this sort of thing isn't done more often.
The check may tell you why. With entrees priced in the $15 to $23 range, cocktails $7 to $10 and
an $8.50 movie ticket, it isn't unusual for two people to walk away a C-note lighter. That would be a lot
of money to see "Run Fatboy Run" or find out if Horton really heard a Who. But it still makes a dandy break from the mosh-pit cineplex.
I left Farrelli's, burping up the evening's best performance and wondering what it would be like when the
movie matched the meal. If they can weave a nice experience around a two-and-a-half-star film, how nicely would it frame a solid hit like "Sweeney Todd?"
OK, not "Sweeney Todd." You'd never move the marinara sauce.
"Farrelli's Cinema Supper Club Gets First Run Films"
Take 5 - Entertainment News Guide
April 10, 2008 - Scottsdale, Arizona - The story of Farrelli's has played out like a drama. A kind of It's a Wonderful Life, meets North Scottsdale.
Wendy Farrelli plays the heroine, fighting to keep her business alive, which she co-owns with her ex-husband Tom, all while feeling the wrath of big business.
But this plot may have a happy ending, yet. And recently there was a big announcement for the Farrelli's Cinema Supper Club - first-run movies.
Farrelli's Cinema Supper Club, Arizona's only restaurant that shows movies, has been fighting for the right to show fresh films for the entire seven years they have been in business.
And now they can. On April 4th, one of the movie distributors began releasing first run films to Farrelli's on their national release date.
The first brand new film Farrelli's debuted is the adventure film, Nim's Island starring Jodie Foster, Gerard Butler and Abigail Breslin.
Along with the privilege of showing first run films in their initial weeks of release come some changes.
"We will show these films four to five times per day, so we will now be open seven days a week as well as seven nights a week," says Wendy Farrelli.
They also need to show it "clean," meaning it will be the only movie showing on that screen all day and night.
"We hope that all the other movie distributors will follow this trend and allow us to compete fairly with other movie theatres
for the consumers business," says Farrelli. "Even though we have an awesome base of loyal customers who wait to see
movies with us, having fresh films will increase our customer base dramatically."
The Farrelli's hope is that this is a new beginning for small, independent theatres everywhere.
The Cinema Supper Club combines the Friday night date experience.
Now instead of dinner and a movie, it's dinner at the movies.
Farrelli's has a full bar and everything from burgers and sandwiches to steak, pasta, chicken and seafood.
This venue offers a way to save time, save money and enjoy two favorite pastimes together.
Action
For the first four years, Farrelli's was granted first run movies as they
dropped in the rankings at the Harkins Shea 14 and the Harkins 101.
Wendy says they begged, argued and fought to get movies as
early as possible as fresh movies are what bring in the customers.
About two years ago, says Farrelli, Harkins Theatres decided to make it even tougher on them.
They were informed that Harkins told the movie distributors that they were exerting "clearance" on Farrelli's and that
they didn't want Farrelli's to have any film that Harkins was playing at the Shea 14 or the Scottsdale 101,
even if it was only playing once per day.
At times, Farrelli's could not bring in a movie for at least one to two months after its release, sometimes even three to four
months or until right before it came out on DVD, according to Farrelli. "The movie distributors told us it is because we are only 2.5 miles from the
Harkins Shea Theatre, so they had the right to exert clearance," says Farrelli. "The mileage standard for clearance is completely nebulous ... sometimes
it is one mile, three miles, five miles. We have even heard of a case where a first run theatre was exerting clearance on another theatre 20 miles away."
The Farrelli's are doing everything they can to try and get some sort of standard set regarding mileage and clearance in the movie distribution industry that everyone can operate by.
They are considering taking their case to the Arizona Attorney General to see what can be done about the situation here in Arizona.
The California Attorney General took up a similar case in San Jose a couple of years ago and after the AG started an investigation,
the larger theatre dropped the clearance on the smaller theatre in question in that case.
Other states are also starting to look into this largely unregulated industry to see if fair standards need to be set for them, since they are not setting such standards for themselves.
While one major movie company is now offering first-run movies to Farrelli's, there is still much work to be done.
"We have been here six and a half years and we just signed another seven year lease, so we aren't going anywhere," says Farrelli. "We
have a wonderful base of loyal customers who wait to see movies with us, but
we will continue to fight for a more fair and level playing field for this industry and for all
smaller movie theatres. We need to organize as an industry and keep people coming out to enjoy the movies and not try to put each other out of business."
"Farrelli's Cinema Supper Club serves up combo in North Scottsdale"
Special for the Scottsdale Republic, by Michelle Hoffman
September 9 - SCOTTSDALE - You're in the mood for dinner and a movie and you've been dying
to see Cinderella Man. But the entire evening revolves around that 7 p.m.
show time. Forget dinner because you won't get home from work in time.
But what if you could nosh on an appetizer of baked Brie a L'Orange and
sip a martini while watching Russell Crowe knock out his opponent in the
opening scene? What if you could spend the rest of the movie savoring a
Cajun rib eye steak with grilled asparagus and a glass of Ravenswood Zinfandel?
Ah, such a place actually exists. Farrelli's Cinema Supper Club in north
Scottsdale serves up current release movies with dinner seven nights a week.
"We consider ourselves a restaurant that shows movies, not a movie theater that
serves food," Tom Farrelli says. He and wife Wendy own the supper theater and the
top-notch Farrelli's Catering.
Located in the Thunderbird Square North Shopping Center, the restaurant's strip mall
location is deceiving. Once through the doors, diners are transported back to the 1940s.
The front lounge, with its chrome-pillared fireplace and elegant bar, provides a cushy
place to order a drink before being seated in the theater.
"We really wanted to make it feel as vintage as you can get here in Phoenix where
everything is new," Wendy says.
You won't find flip seats with plastic cupholders or sticky floors dotted with popcorn
in these theaters. Instead, diners enjoy their evening surrounded by floor-to-ceiling
drapes, plush carpeting, leather chairs and round tables. An enormous brass sunburst
fans out above the movie screen in true art-deco style.
The menu is as elegant as the decor and caters to all appetites from the grilled Angus
burger on a Kaiser roll ($7.95) to the cumin rubbed New York strip with Gorgonzola butter ($19.95).
There are also sandwiches and salads like the tomato and housemade buffalo
mozzarella salad ($7.95) and the grilled portobello and havarti sandwich ($7.95).
By the way, that large tub of popcorn and drink at the local cineplex will set you back about $10.
The 5 p.m. movie is geared toward kids with a menu to match. For $6.95, junior
movie buffs have a choice of pizza, pasta, chicken tenders or a cheese quesadilla.
Dinner orders are taken before the movie, but the wait staff, dressed in black, is
discreetly present throughout the film refreshing drinks and taking dessert orders.
Wendy says her customers are addicted to watching a movie this way. She's got an e-mail
database of 20,000. But for some, the dinner-with-a-movie concept remains elusive. Tom
says he gets questions all day. "People ask me questions on the phone, when they walk in
the door, and they keep asking me questions while they're seated and waiting for the movie to start," he says.
Tom and Wendy start ticking off a list of them: Are there TVs on the table?
(There's a regular movie theater screen.) If it's dark, how do we see our food?
(There's soft lighting over the tables.) If there's a movie starting at 5 and a
movie starting at 6, are the movies only an hour long? (There are two theaters.)
But Wendy doesn't mind the questions.
"It usually turns into a customer because we take the time to explain how it all
works," she says. "It's fun when people check it out for the first time and go,
'Oh my God, it's way cooler than I thought.' "
Just ask Alice Bennett. As she looks over her menu on a Tuesday evening,
she says it's the second time she has been to Farrelli's this week.
"It's a good family thing to do," she says seated at a table with son,
Bruce, and father, Frank Blaser. "It's elegant, and the food is good."
Log onto the restaurant's website, www.farrellis.com, for show times
and a menu. The hardest part is leaving room for the cheesecake.
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