Tim League, the CEO and founder of Alamo Drafthouse cinemas, told Yonkers business leaders Tuesday his twin 3-year-old daughters were not allowed to watch movies at any of the company”™s theaters.
Alamo has a “no children” policy for most movies and is famous for its one-warning-and-you”™re-out policy for texters and talkers during films. Forgoing the extra revenue, the company has kept its screenings ad-free.
“I”™m trying to create a relatively distraction-free environment,” League said during a slideshow presentation projected on the big screen at the Alamo on Central Avenue. The Yonkers Chamber of Commerce held its networking breakfast there: It was the first time chamber members recalled attending a networking meeting in a movie theater, much less one at which they were served a full breakfast while sitting in stadium seating.
League told the Business Journal he was in town for a few days and was scouting potential locations for future Alamo theaters. The chain, which started in Texas, now has 19 theaters in 15 U.S. markets.
“I don”™t think of us as a chain, but I understand we are,” League said, but emphasized he tried to make each theater unique, catering to different communities with its film choices and special events.
The Yonkers theater, which opened in August, was the first in the New York metro market. A second theater in the region is expected to open in Downtown Brooklyn in 2015. A planned theater on Manhattan”™s West Side was abandoned last year after Hurricane Sandy inflated costs of renovating the space.
League said he chose Yonkers after saying “no” to other cities and towns in the metro area. “I had heard the name Yonkers; I knew where it was on a map but I had never been up here or to the Westchester area before,” he said. Once he found the potential site, he said, he spent a week hanging around Yonkers, riding his bicycle through neighborhoods and getting familiar with all of Westchester.
“It”™s similar to my hometown,” he said.
He uses the term “relatively” when talking about distractions because Alamo theaters have tables and wait staffs serving food and pints of beer while a movie plays. It”™s the food service, no-distractions policy, assigned seating and classic and cult movie selection that sets Alamo apart from the traditional multiplex experience. Alamo will often come up with a themed menu based on the films it shows (thankfully, there are no “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” screenings scheduled on the Yonkers showtime calendar). He has already been contemplating potential dishes and drinks for the upcoming Jon Favreau movie, “Chef.”
“I get really excited when food-related movies come out,” he said.
Alamo has a nontraditional cinema business model due to the complexities of the food service. He said he tries not to go toe-to-toe with the larger theater chains in terms of ticket sales but rather seeks to put on special events to coincide with particular films. Alamo may not have as many screens as some of its competitors, he said, but it has a larger average fill rate per film. An average moviegoer spends $3.50 on concessions while an Alamo customer on average spends $13 per visit. Of course, Alamo theaters need a much larger staff than your average movie theater, which may need no more than a handful of staff members at a time. The Yonkers Alamo employs more than 100, he said.
League told Yonkers chamber members his credentials for starting Alamo came strictly from his love of movies. He graduated with a degree in mechanical engineering and worked for Shell Oil before he and his wife, Karrie, bought a theater in Bakersfield, Calif. That theater failed, but the Leagues moved from California back to Austin, Texas, the state where they went to college. They gave the movie business another go, opening the first Alamo in 1997.
He attributes the success of the company to focusing on fun for customers as well as the staff. He outlined Alamo”™s “Holy Trinity”: profitability, high net promoter scores and high employee net promoter scores. A net promoter score measures how likely a customer is to recommend the theater to other potential customers, while an employee net promoter score measures how likely an employee is to recommend the job to their friends.
Cinemas are similar to other industries, struggling to remain relevant to millenials, League said. Alamo seeks to make going to the movies fun again, he said, and breed an appreciation for film in young people. “We want to build a young cinephile audience,” he said.
Yonkers Mayor Mike Spano, a Democrat, said Alamo was part of a resurgence of the arts in the city. Spano told chamber members Yonkers would be launching a “Generation Yonkers” ad campaign to attract businesses to the city, similar to campaigns for upstate cities like Buffalo. “We just want them here,” Spano said.
