ArcLight Cinemas’ recent food-and-beverage overhaul gave the company an edge over L.A.’s ample movie-eatery competition. And now the chain's getting even more of a beverage boost.
Starting next week, select ArcLight Cinemas will host cocktail pop-up menus tailored to special film screenings. Based off the brand’s series in Chicago, L.A. is now receiving its own Lights, Camera, Cocktails run, where you can catch screenings of (cult) classic films that now include three themed cocktails every show, each trio designed by a different L.A. bar.
The series kicks off next Wednesday with Goldfinger, when Bar Clacson will sling—ideally golden—cocktails at the ArcLight Culver City. Next up is Bibo Ergo Sum, an obvious choice to participate: It’s owned by Tait Forman, whose family founded ArcLight, and the bar is already loosely themed around Christopher Nolan’s The Prestige. On October 17, the team will whip up drinks inspired by a different Nolan film, Inception, in that same theater.
Photograph: Courtesy ArcLight Cinemas
The Goody Two Shots cocktail, from the ArcLight Chicago’s screening of Sin City
Accomplice—winners of Time Out’s 2018 Bar of the Year award—will tackle Kill Bill, Volume 1 on October 24 at the ArcLight in Santa Monica; the Everly Hotel’s Ever Bar will say hello to little friend Scarface on November 14 in Culver City; and the fun- and music-loving folks of Harvard and Stone seem like a solid fit for the November 28 showing of The Blues Brothers in Santa Monica.
Closing out the year and the series are the forthcoming Pikoh, who’ll presumably give us the royale treatment for Culver City’s December 5 night of Pulp Fiction, and beverage staple Melrose Umbrella Co., who’ll most likely turn up the whimsy on their fanciful cocktails for a December 12 Amelie screening in Santa Monica.
Tickets for the Lights, Camera, Cocktails series run $40 per person and include the evening’s three themed cocktails, popcorn and admission to the film. Each iteration begins with the first cocktail in the theater’s café, where the guest bar team will be mingling—in case you want to talk cocktails. From there, you can pick up your second drink and a bag of popcorn to nosh on during the movie, then afterward, close it all out with a film talk back in the café with your third cocktail in hand. And, that’s a wrap.
Lights, Camera, Cocktails begins next Wednesday, September 19. Tickets are available in person, and online in advance.