McCormick & Schmick’s Offers Dinner & a Show
White-tablecloth seafood restaurant chain McCormick & Schmick’s is preparing to launch a promotion meant to satisfy customers’ summer entertainment needs as well as their palates.
Starting this Friday and lasting through September or until supplies run out, customers who buy a dinner entrée at the 75 participating restaurants among the 80-plus outlets in the chain will also be able to buy a ticket to a movie at a nearby theater for only $5.00.
The eight-week promotion, entitled “Reel to Reel”, will be publicized with posters and table tents within the participating restaurants and by servers as they take customers’ orders.
The offer is also being publicized on the company’s Web site.
On the Web site or in the restaurants, visitors can also enter a ‘Reel to Reel” sweepstakes to win an expense-paid trip for two to the 2010 Sundance Festival in Park City UT, including VIP passes to some of the parties at the event.
“Budget-conscious diners shouldn’t have to choose between dinner OR a movie, when we make it affordable to enjoy both,” McCormick & Schmick’s CEO Bill Freeman said in a release. “A $5 movie ticket is a fantastic value and enables our guests to enjoy a real dinner as part of a fun night out.”
McCormick & Schmick’s is perhaps the most upscale foodservice company to give diners a discount on entertainment, but they’re not alone. Sandwich chain Subway launched a promotion at the end of June with concert promoter Live Nation that gives customers who’ve purchased a $5 footlong sandwich the chance to buy special $5 tickets to select summer concerts by artists such as Nickelback and the Fray and admission to Motley Crue’s Cruefest festival.
Alongside the movie promotion, McCormick & Schmick’s is debuting a summer menu that includes blueberry shortcake dessert. And for every blueberry shortcake sold, the company will make a donation to the American Heart Association.
