Elm Draught House Cinema: A Review

Bring a cushion from home. If they would let you, I’d even suggest you bring your own chair. Because the seats there are that old, that broken down, and borderline nasty to sit on. That is the harshest part of my review, right up front and now out of the way.

Ed and I went to the Elm Draught House Cinema on Saturday, March 4, 2023 as part of our weekly Date Day/Night. My friend Laurel had told me about the venue when we met for coffee a few weeks back. She and her husband Ed had gone to the movies there and enjoyed the simplicity of the site, as well as the wallet-friendly prices. Outside of both of our husband’s being named Ed, Laurel and I have a lot in common, so I was eager to follow her lead and give Elm a try.

From the moment Ed and I walked in, we could both tell that it was a special place. There is a feeling inside that transcends the draftiness of the end-of-winter chill that settles into the large theatre hours before it fills up with both people and the smell of fresh popcorn. The old posters of black and white, and early color movies, begins your walk down memory lane, leading you down two long aisles with rows of hard-loved seats doing their best to sit up-right for the next batch of people to face front. Be sure to glance around the room and take in the memorabilia of near-life-sized iconic characters, from Wonder Woman to Darth Vader. The small stage below the large screen holds a couch and a few chairs. There are comedy shows here on some nights. The big screen is not the only attraction, just usually the main attraction on most nights.

Jim, the owner, is friendly, exuberant, and clearly loves his job! He greets each customer with a genuine welcome that makes you want to plan your next trip even before the lights go down for the previews. While pointing out the emergency exits, he announces to his guests a few simple guidelines:  Say please and thank you, cover your mouth when you cough or sneeze, and be kind, because you never know what someone else is going through. There is no political agenda, no admonition, and no judgement. Just simple advice that may not seem like it has anything to do with a movie showing, but certainly carries beyond the setting.

He doesn’t accept credit cards, only cash and checks (Checks? Really?! REALLY!), yet have no fear. This is a night out when the cash will linger and you will go home with more than just the lint deep in the corner of your pocket. Admission is $6.00 per person. We ordered two beers each, two medium popcorns, and a large popcorn to take home to the kids. (I ate all the popcorn. The kids were not fast enough. It is the most like home-made popcorn that I have experienced in a public place.) Even with tip, I spent $48.00 for our entire experience. This is a movie theater you can take the kids to and they can all have their own drinks and a snack. No need for sharing to conserve funds!

We chose to sit in seats along the left side of the theatre, about half-way down the aisle. There was no one in front of us or behind us. Each row on that side, and I assume it is the same on the right side, had a low wooden counter attached to the backside of each row of seats. That meant we had a small table in front of us upon which to sit our beers and popcorn. I was also able to leave my purse there, instead of having to sit it in the seat with me or put it in the seat next to me. This saved me from fishing it out of the crack or off the floor when the movie was over. The center section did not appear to have this feature. I did notice a small table at the end of each row, but that would only be helpful for the person sitting on the end. I highly recommend the seats with a bar!

Ed and I switched our seats twice after sitting for a few minutes, until we found the best choice of seats, along with our cushion. Once settled in, we were able to thoroughly enjoy the movie and were not uncomfortable for four previews and the feature film that ran for two hours and six minutes.

During the film, Jim keeps the popcorn popping and you can return back to the concession stand to “belly up to the bar” (his words!) and order drinks, snacks and pizza. He has a rather large wine and beer selection, including beers on tap, as well as in bottles. There were literally so many things to choose from, I had my McDonald’s menu gaze going as my head continued to span the menu, hoping something would jump out at me. There is no shortage of options at the Elm!

The spirit of the old-time movie theater as the center of your evening out will stay with you long after you leave the Elm and return to times more hurried, modern and expensive. Ed & I could not stop talking about the beauty of the place and what Jim is giving people who choose to be entertained there. There was a hominess, a genuineness and a peacefulness that you don’t feel in IMAX. It may be old, it may be run-down, and it may not have first-run shows, but it is certainly worth every cash penny you spend there. We will be sure to return!

Future Me

I am not smarter than a fifth grader. I do not have a Doctorate or a master’s degree. I have a Bachelor’s degree in English and on most days I cannot help my eleventh grader with her math homework because “New” math kicked me off the learning curve over twenty years ago. I find myself feeling ignorant of the ever-changing economic structure of our country and I am at a complete loss for an understanding of why people on social media feel the need to gripe, complain and criticize someone else’s content that they were not invited to review. It seems simple to me:  do not like what you see? Unfollow. Scroll on. A fifth grader probably understands all the reasons that people need to share, and all the reasons why the creators read, listen to and respond to the people that hate them for what they share. In contrast, I have gotten some positive feedback for the things I have shared openly.

In recent years I started telling people to expect a few things from me as I age:

      1.)  I do not remember things well unless I write them down. So please don’t be offended if I ask for an explanation or a plan more than once.

2.    2.)  PLEASE stop me from buying shit off Instagram. Definitely look out for me when I start talking about the princess in Egypt who is being held against her will and can only get out alive if I buy large amounts of gift cards and ship them out of the country to her.

3.    3.)  Put on your big-kid pants, plant your feet and cover your ears because this girl is going to become Maxine from the Shoe box greeting cards. In the famous words of my dad, “Nuff said.”

The fact that I know I will be a forgetful, gullible, cranky old lady is partly a true acceptance of the anxiety and neurosis that have plagued me my whole life, as well as an understanding of the road that they were destined to lead me. You do not have pads of paper in every room, a “Car Can” for each new driver in the family or a family and friend reputation as the bitch that never has enough time for anyone, without having travelled well-paved roads to those destinations. If the hardest part of solving any problem is first admitting that there is a problem, then assuredly the above roads will be paved in diamonds. Very bumpy diamonds that I will forget to pick up along the way because I didn’t write it down before I headed that way.

I may not be able to name every country in South America or name any of the presidents between Van Buren and Lincoln, but I have learned over the years who I am and mostly how I function, and more importantly, why. It would take a book and not a blog to cover all my discoveries, and that may be part of the road I am destined to travel at some point as well. For now, I am comfortable admitting that I do not know it all. I Google the things I don’t know or understand. And I am thankful every day that I can accept who I am, where I have come from and where I am headed.