Today Dave, Woo and I went to the Parkway Theater in Oakland to watch Moulin Rouge and the Ron Jeremy biopic. Pick and Eric have raved about the Parkway for years and yet we three had never gone there. Various reasons why we've never been there. It's sort of out of the way for us, it's mostly a second- run movie theatre, it only has two screens so there's less of a chance of a movie we want to see being there.

So finally there came a movie that Dave wanted to see, "Porn Star: The Legend of Ron Jeremy". He had assumed that I didn't want to go so he had already written me out of it. Fine with me since I was kind of busy this week at work. But then he saw that Moulin Rouge was also going to be on and he thought I'd want to see that. My general rule is that I try to attend if I'm invited so I said yes and left work early and we met Woo at the Parkway.

Now, the only thing we knew about the Parkway from Pick and Eric was that you could order relatively real food and have it served to you at the theatre. Each theatre had tables and couches where you could sit and eat and watch the movie at the same time. For some reason it seems like such a California thing and yet nobody else seems to do it.

The Parkway was one a one-screen theatre, later remodeled into a two-screen theatre. In all the other theatres where this is done (that I've seen), the split is right down the middle of the room, so you end up with two small screens side by side. But, since the Parkway had a balcony, what they did was close off the balcony and mount a screen up there. The balcony ends and it slopes up to the screen, so that the screen is not right up to the first seats.

This is an important point because I just did not understand that concept. We went to the main room because I saw a "2" on the door. Actually, the "2" was on the door to the balcony and since it was propped open it covered up the "1" on the other door. So we wasted a few minutes in the wrong screen and missed the start of Moulin Rouge. In the meantime, since we mistakenly thought that the movie hadn't started, we ordered food. (Not that it would have mattered as much, since we still were like 5 minutes late and the Parkway seems to start movies almost immediately -- there was only one preview before the second feature.)

The food is one of the big draws of the Parkway, so what kind of food do they serve? For appetizers they have nachos, buffalo wings, and the required popcorn, plus a couple of vegeterian dishes. Three kinds of salads, a half dozen kinds of sandwiches, two pasta dishes, and pizza. They also serve beer and wine some sweet things. You order on one side of the counter, then you slide over to the other side to pay for it and get a stand with a number on it. Then you can go to your theatre room and find a table.

We ordered a large pizza, nachos, and buffalo wings. That pretty much lasted the three of us until the end of the movie. Not great food, but not bad for theatre food. Naturally, it's a bit overpriced. Still, a small independend theatre needs to generate revenue and with only two to four showings a night (they don't only have early showings on weekends) the concession stand is that revenue generator.

The couches themselves vary in quality. Some are very used and not fluffy at all. But there are also padded chairs and even some theatre-like seating in the balcony. The only complaint I had was that noise from the lower theatre could be heard at the upper theatre. You sort of have to focus on the your movie. That's a problem with split screen rooms since the walls they put up aren't usually good soundproof walls.

In conclusion, the Parkway Theatre is a fun experience for a small group of people. The seating is designed for two people, three is ok, I can't imagine more than four unless you use multiple tables. The staff is friendly, the food is acceptably good, the theatre is clean and the movies we saw were of good quality (i.e. I didn't notice any scratchiness in the film). Get there early so you can order and find a seat (though finding seating wasn't a problem when we went there Thursday night). Go and try it once. And order some food, otherwise there's no point in going.