Stuffed wraps.
There are plenty of movies with legendary food scenes. Flix Brewhouse, the new theater/restaurant/brewery in East Towne Mall, knows this and has crafted a pre-show trailer full of some of the more recognizable scenes of big-screen eating. The Breakfast Club’s Pixy Stix and Cap’n Crunch sandwich, Pulp Fiction’s tasty burger, Mystic Pizza’s...pizza. They’re up there on the big screen, designed get you in the mood to dine in the dark.
I’m going to be honest. I think in-theater dining (not the motorized recliners or even the loss of real butter) is the real threat to traditional moviegoing in America. Whoever decided that crunchy, drippy nachos were appropriate theater fare should, frankly, be first before the tribunal. I mean, popcorn is grandfathered in, but it’s more than loud enough to disrupt. A whole dang quesadilla? Quelle nightmare!
The trend of offering more than candy, popcorn and soft drinks in movie theaters has been advancing for years now, so the idea of a brewery serving a full meal before the screen should not surprise anyone. Flix has a novelty all its own, though, by not just serving beer, but brewing it on-site as well. The tap list is quite lengthy, with 20 handles split between house brews and guest taps.
The house beers, like the nominally hazy IPAs Nebulas and Ozymandias, or the bubblegummy Luna Rosa wit, all fall in the center of the acceptable range of my own private score sheet — impressive for any mall-based brewing operation. All Flix beers are brewed onsite; a set of six core beers can also be found at every Flix location. Another 10 taps pour guest breweries’ beer. While it’s available, the Oktoberfest called Das Ümlaut is particularly good, a fine seasonal for these early autumnal days.
While Flix clearly prides itself on being a full-service restaurant, I don’t anticipate that it will give Graze or Marigold Kitchen a run for anyone’s money. But compared to Applebee’s, TGI Fridays or any other similar American tavern fare generalist, Flix absolutely holds its own and then some.
Portion size at Flix hews to the “giant bucket of popcorn” standard; if you leave Flix still hungry, odds are that’s a you problem. I couldn’t swear it was cooked precisely to medium, but even in the minimal light of the darkened theater, the hefty cheeseburger certainly felt like a juicy, well-seasoned medium. French fries, of the thick and battered variety, arrive in a generous heap next to the burgers, sandwiches and wraps on the menu.
The Cuban medianoche sandwich was not served on a brioche style bun as the name implies, but even if it was basically just a regular Cuban sandwich, it was no slouch. Lots of melty cheese bound quite a bit of ham, pork, and pickles together with buttery griddled bread. A late-summer special Thai chicken wrap was equally stuffed, though it was dangerously drippy.
Gooey fried mac and cheese bites.
There are two seat configurations: one is an upright theater chair with a breakfast bar-height counter that extends toward you, the other a recliner seat with a school desk tray that swings toward you. You’ll be greeted by an employee who will take your order pre-show, and all subsequent ordering is done silently by way of a notepad and a discreet service button. Should you so desire, you can treat Flix as just a regular old restaurant and do all your eating and drinking in the lobby bar area.
This would be the best place to eat a buffalo chicken salad, slicked with a thin and watered-down ranch dressing. You might also stick to lobby dining for pizza, which is tossed and assembled to order. A Philly cheesesteak pie was pale, greasy and bland, though — maybe don’t bother in the theater or the lobby.
Flix finds its greatest successes with starters. Fried mac and cheese bites usually taste as pre-fabricated as they are, but Flix manages to keep its version gooey and mac-and-cheesy. There are also six to an order, plenty to go around. Potato skins tasted equally true to their potato roots, not the typical oily and scooped out type. And if someone asked me if I’d eat that lime chicken quesadilla again, in a theater or not, I’d say yes. It was toasty, savory, and served with plenty of sour cream and guacamole.
You can get a standard bag of theater popcorn to munch on in the lobby before your show, too, but wouldn’t you know, I never once felt the urge to buy any.
Editor's note: This article was corrected to note that all Flix beers are brewed in-house. Also the subhead was changed to reflect that not all Flix brewhouses are located in malls.
Flix Brewhouse
85 East Towne Mall; 608-665-2070; flixbrewhouse.com/madison
Kitchen open 15 minutes past start of the last movie showing daily; $5-$15.