What can Sturgis do to provide its residents with some local entertainment after all the motorcycles go home? How about turn one of their big biker saloons into a local movie house?
Easyriders Saloon opened the Sturgis Dinner Theater last Thursday with a ribbon-cutting and media event. The saloon rolls out a 20-foot screen and some nice recliners in front of the usual dinner tables in their big hall. Movie tickets are $5, but they knock that price off your dinner if you choose to chew through your film (just a bucket of popcorn shrimp for me, thanks!). A family movie free with dinner: I'd drive to Sturgis from Spearfish or Rapid for that... especially to see Star Trek: Into Darkness on April 4!
(Just one marketing quibble: dinner theater is when the waiter brings you your meal, then jumps on the stage with a bunch of other people and does A Chorus Line live. Easyriders is offering dinner cinema, which is its own kind of fun.)
KELO reports that the mayor and the city council have been working on a nice downtown cinema for several years. And now Easyriders has stepped up to the plate, expanding their entertainment to bring folks off I-90 and into downtown year-round. Madison, are you paying attention? What do you think will bring more people and dollars to town, dinner cinema or more second-hand shopping?
Dinner cinema focuses on sports this week with March Madness on the big screen. Sturgis's first movie offerings come Friday with Catching Fire and The Heat, followed by a nice weekend mix of movies for kids and adults. Now if we can just get the saloon managers to put together the obvious and ultimate tie-in triple feature: The Wild One, Road House, and Easy Rider... plus an ongoing lunch special featuring Charlie and Ewan's Long Way Round!