The new Barrel O’ Fun at the new Alamo Drafthouse at Mueller is where many family-friendly programming will happen.
RICARDO B. BRAZZIELL/AMERICAN-STATESMAN
Today, we went inside the new Alamo Drafthouse in the Mueller neighborhood. The concept of this Alamo is to be geared toward families during the day, but geared toward adults at night.
The concept will be felt the most at the Barrel O’ Fun restaurant that becomes the Bar O’ Fun with a 21 and up crowd after 8 p.m. The Barrel O’ Fun includes kid-friendly meals such as a version of corn dogs, macaroni and cheese, quesadillas and chicken tenders. The Alamo is also making its own syrups in its old-fashioned soda fountain inside. The Bar O’ Fun will use the same syrups in its cocktails.
RICARDO B. BRAZZIELL/AMERICAN-STATESMAN
During the day on the weekends, Barrel O’ Fun also will have some kid activities. There are built-in carnival game activities like Eggs in a Basket, Chunk the Puck and Toss Off.
This Alamo will show its family friendly side in the movies that come here. It opens on March 9, with films like “The Lego Batman Movie” and “Red Turtle,” but also the more adult “Logan.”
Other events that are coming this month include Kids Camp showing of “Shrek,” at 12:25 p.m. March 13-15, a “Beauty and the Beast” party March 25 and a yet-t0-be-scheduled Parents’ Night Out collaboration with The Thinkery. Parents will drop their kids off for supervised activities and then come over to the Alamo for a parents-only movie.
Because of its location, this Alamo is able to partner with the Thinkery, but also Dell Children’s Medical Center of Central Texas, where it will give passes for the hospital to give out, and The Ronald McDonald House Charities of Central Texas. Families staying at the house will be able to use their house badges to get into shows for free. The Alamo is also working with Dell Children’s obesity prevention program at its spring awareness event to bring things like a 15-foot dinosaur from “Jurassic Park” that kids can run from to be active.
Amy Averett, director of family and community engagement nationwide for Alamo Drafthouse, is excited to be able to use this Alamo to experiment with the programming for families that other Alamos might eventually provide. Some things on the horizon include workshops for children that are about filmmaking, more Kids Camps, children and teen karaoke events, and the possibility of doing more events where kids watch one movie, parents watch another.
The Barrel O’ Fun stage will host some family-friendly entertainment during the day.
RICARDO B. BRAZZIELL/AMERICAN-STATESMAN
This Alamo Drafthouse also has some nice features for families. In addition to the gender-neutral bathrooms that will get a lot of attention, this theater has two family accessible bathrooms with changing tables. Inside the theaters, each seat reclines and has its own individual table. That means that awkward moment of having to figure out which kid is going to share a table with a stranger won’t happen here.
The one nit for this theater that was unavoidable is that it is two stories. There’s a big staircase to climb, much like at the Thinkery next door. And, to get to the elevators, you have to go through the bar. That means if you have kids or teens who come to see a movie at night, they will have to walk through the Bar O’ Fun to get to the elevator or be physically able to take the stairs.
The new Alamo Drafthouse is at 1911 Aldrich St. drafthouse.com It shares the same parking garage as The Thinkery and the Drafthouse will validate parking up to 4 hours.
We’ll have more on the new Alamo Drafthouse in the Liquid Austin blog.
