Page 58 - BCM July 2024

The concourse area at B&B Theatres’
FIRST LOOK
venue in Red Oak, Texas, provides
plenty of room for guests to obtain
movie tickets, purchase concessions,
relax with a beverage and more.

Screen Test

B&B Theatres has opened its fourth entertainment complex with

bowling among the attractions. Surprisingly to some, there are
lessons proprietors can learn from this no-longer-unique marriage.

BY BARRY SPARKS B&B has proven it knows some- as well as 65 arcade games. Outdoor
thing about foreseeing the future attractions include four pickleball
owling centers and movie and adapting to change. e family- courts, two bocce pits, four cabanas,
B theaters have been major owned business, in its fourth gen- a full bar and a large re pit.
entertainment venues for millions of eration, is the fth-largest chain of is is the fourth B&B location with
Americans for decades. One hundred theaters in the country. bowling.
years ago, when B&B eatres was e Liberty, Missouri-based “After we added bowling at our
founded, movie theaters showed company is celebrating its 100th location in suburban Des Moines,
silent lms in a simple setting, while anniversary this year by combining Iowa, in 2019, we were hooked on
bowling centers employed pin boys movie theaters with bowling, along bowling,” says Dennis McIntire, the
to set the pins and provided cus- with other attractions, at its Red Oak, company’s vice president of strategic
tomers with pencils to keep score. Texas, facility, which opened in April. development and innovation.
rough the years, B&B eatres e location, one of 54 in the B&B “ ere are attractions with a ‘small
has embraced the coming of sound, chain, features 12 movie screens a’ and attractions with a ‘large A,’
color, multiplexes, widescreen, with advanced cinematic concepts, and we consider bowling a ‘large A’
digital, 3D and countless other including an amphitheater with 270- attraction,” he says. “It’s a critical
advances in projection and stereo degree Screen X, 4 DX, Grand Screen, element of our entertainment com-
sound. Today’s movie-goers can Screen PLAY (featuring playground plex.”
enjoy their favorite lms in various equipment in the theater), Lyric Bowling ts B&B’s brand and what
screen formats, surrounded by sound and Max Relax. e theaters o er the company is trying to accomplish,
and in stadium seating that features premium, immersive sound. according to McIntire. It attracts all
luxury high-back reclining chairs. e complex also houses an enter- ages, especially families and multi-
It’s a long way from watching Charlie tainment center with what has been generations, and is great for team-
Chaplin in “ e Gold Rush,” a 1925 dubbed B-Roll Bowling — 16 lanes building activities.
silent movie. with string pinsetters and SPARK — “Bowling is an easy sell,” he says.

56 • BCM • JULY 2024 www.bcmmag.com

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