Scott L.
Yelp
Eat BEFORE you go here.
The atmosphere is actually very nice, especially if you'd seen this theater at North Point previously. And it's as high tech and comfortable as you can expect today. There's a full bar in the front, and an open, spacious lobby to linger in prior to the movie starting. All of that was very good. The problem - the serious problem - is the food. Also, sneaking in a compulsory 18% tip, without mentioning it, is simply disingenuous.
We were also actually impressed with the theater. Unlike the SMG that shut down on Holcomb Bridge Road, the seats in these theaters all appear to recline fully. And the staff is friendly enough, just apparently not friendly enough to mention that the tip is already included. (On our way out, we actually did notice a sign that mentioned an 18% gratuity would be included. I don't know if that's a legal safeguard or they just want to be able to claim we should have noticed the sign if we'd complained.) But someone, anyone, from the bartender out front to the server in the theater, could have mentioned it before handing us the bill to sign (and add a tip). (We always tip 20% or more for decent service, but don't like the idea that we're tipping 38% because they weren't upfront about it.
Luckily, if you're reading this review, your bill should be substantially reduced because you really, really shouldn't order the food here. The three of us ordered chicken fingers, a soutwest taco salad and "awesome crispy wings." (It may not be obvious from the menu title, but the "crispy" wings are boneless - so more like non-crispy chicken nuggets with wing sauce.) The chicken fingers are similar to what you might find in the frozen section of your local Kroger - not awful but not restaurant quality. But the taco salad was truly more other-worldly than the DC Comics movie we were there to see.
I'd asked the server to mix the dressing in, rather than have it on the side, because adding a salad dressing in the dark seemed like it might be more challenging than having it mixed in the light of the kitchen. I now believe I was mistaken about that assumption. I assumed they'd know better than to add equal parts lettuce to dressing. The best description of that salad might be lettuce-gazpacho soup. The ground beef was similar to what you might find at a Wendy's restaurant, when cleaning the grill at the end of the night, finding abandoned bits of ground beef on the corners of the grill, having cooked all day - unnoticed until it was used in my taco salad. As I sat, chewing in the dark, these strange, small chewy/crunchy bits were enough to redirect my attention completely from the movie to "WTH is this?". At first I thought they were bits of stale tortilla. Whatever taste the beef may have had was cooked out of it hours earlier.
It's one thing to ruin a meal - because who knows, maybe the cook happened to have a mental breakdown while cooking our meal; but it's something entirely more egregious for the company to systemically build in a process that defrauds the patrons who assume this restaurant practices the same, generally accepted tipping practices that all other restaurants use (e.g. mandatory tip added to parties of six or more).
In summary, the venue is pretty nice, so give it a shot. But please consider this a PSA about the food and the bill. There are a LOT of perfectly fine restaurants on that road, from Five Guys and Chick-fil-a to the Cheesecake Factory and California Pizza Kitchen. Do yourself a favor and eat at one of them first.
