Lunch and a Flick in New Hampshire

The problem statement:

What do you do with four adults, a five year-old, a four year-old, a three year-old, a two year-old, and a one year-old? (Fleeing is not an option.)
Where can a family from Manchester, NH and a family from Worcester, MA get together? (Even my native New Yorker husband who believes that "The City" is the center of the universe, didn't try to claim that Manhattan was the answer.)
What sort of venue works to allow adults to socialize, kids to be occupied, and includes food and entertainment? (We dismissed Chuck E. Cheese, because both families involved have at least one child who would file for a restraining order on Chuck if they could.)

My family wanted to meet the family of one of my husband's co-workers over the holiday break. As it tends to happen, the holiday break from his workplace went by much faster than we had hoped. Before we knew it, New Year's Day was quickly approaching. Since neither family had anything planned for it, we decided that would be the day we would get together. But where should we meet? My husband's co-worker suggested a place called Chunky's. It's a pub and movie theater with current movies playing. I was immediately drawn into the cheesiness of it!

It turned out to be even better than I expected. After using our new GPS to find our way to the wilderness of New Hampshire (alright Nashua was under an hour away from us), we went to purchase tickets to the movies. The parking lot was surprisingly crowded. It proved fortunate that we hadn't promised Alvin and the Chipmunks to the children, because that was sold out. This was a huge surprise to me seeing as until a couple of days ago, I didn't even know that there was an Alvin and the Chipmunks movie much less that there would be such a demand to see it!

We got tickets to Water Horse and then went in to get a table. Talk about comfy! The seats were all either driver or passenger seats from a limousine and even had the holes in them where the seat belt normally threads through on the bottom. The chairs all actually reclined and had arm rests. Each table was long with space for eight chairs (or in our case seven regular chairs and two high chairs) around it. The chairs were all on wheels so you could face the table when you ate and then swivel to face the movie screen in a school bus like fashion.

The menu was quite extensive for a movie theater/pub. I deliberated between the Kevin Bacon Burger, the Swiss Family Robinson Mushroom and Bacon burger and the Brave Heart Buffalo Chicken Sandwich (which is what I actually went with.) There is waiter service, starting with our arrival an hour before the movie through the end of the movie. They even provided a light up "call button" so that you may summon a waiter during the movie if, for example, your four year old decides he wants popcorn halfway through the movie.

I had no complaints about the company, and only had two minor complaints about the place. First of all, the theater itself smelled like an airplane. Not bad or good. However just like when on an actual airplane, after a few minutes I couldn't smell it anymore. It was also a little hard, but not impossible to cut up food, in the dark. That said, my husband's co-worker said that today's service was unusually slow and they usually bring out the food before it's dark in the theater.

There is a similar theater in Clinton MA called The Strand. However, Chunky's leaves The Strand stranded on three counts. First Chunky's plays current movies. Second the limo chairs at Chunky's are really neat not to mention the tables are a lot better. Finally, Chunky's has the convenience of waiter service, rather than requiring you to go order from a counter. However, the ticket prices at The Strand are much better since the The Strand doesn't play current movies; it plays movies that are in between being at the regular theater and being out on DVD.

Comments

That sounds really cool! What a thing to try.

Posted by: margaret | January 02, 2008 at 09:04 AM

Been there. LOVE it! There's also one in Pelham, NH which we've been to as well. Excellent food, cool environment, awesome experience. I highly recommend it to anyone.

Posted by: Amy | January 02, 2008 at 11:19 AM