Regal Closes All US Theaters, Suspends Billing for Unlimited Pass Customers

This is a sad day for movie theater fans. Finding a movie to play in a theater — any theater — in any United States city? Difficult, perhaps soon to be impossible. AMC and Regal Cinemas have closed all their U.S theaters.

Sources tell The Hollywood Reporter they expect most, if not all, cinemas in the U.S. to follow suit and go dark in the coming days, much as in Europe and parts of Asia. Regal is the first U.S. circuit to make a blanket announcement.

Regal to Close All U.S. Theaters Indefinitely Amid Coronavirus Pandemic | Hollywood Reporter

We’re down in Las Vegas right now and yesterday we caught — literally — the last showing of The Hunt ⭐️⭐️ at 4:30pm at the Boulder Station casino in Las Vegas. We then tried to go down to the Palace Station for the Cinebarre and it was already closed (see sign above).

We received a note from our Regal Unlimited app that they are suspending billing temporarily. We were both wondering if we’d be billed $42 USD for the month when there were no movies we could see, even if we wanted. Turns out that Regal already has planned this out. Good for them. We wish the theaters were still open, but appreciate not being charged for something we are now unable to use.

Unconfirmed as of this writing, but I believe Cinemark theaters in Las Vegas are still open — they are showing movie times as of moments ago — so movies can still be seen in those theaters, but who knows how much longer they’ll hold out.

MGM has closed down their 14 properties on the strip in Vegas, and that alone feels weird. Even during 9/11, which by the way, we were also in Las Vegas, everything stayed open.

How long will these theater closures last? We tried asking questions but even the employees we spoke to were told nothing. Only that they needed to close and there were no answers as to when the theaters would reopen.

Sad, sad days.

Cinebarre Palace Station Las Vegas

“One Flew Over the Cookie’s Nest”, nachos and a shake at Cinnebar Palace Station in Las Vegas

On Friday 9/20/2019 we went to see Ad Astra⭐️ at the Cinnebar Palace Station. The movie was bad, the service and food was not.

This was our first trip to a Regal Cinnebar theater. The concept is cool, you go to the movies and have dinner and a show. The location of the Cinnebar is upstairs above the newly remodeled Palace Station Casino a few miles from the strip in Las Vegas.

Once you buy tickets, you enter the theater just like any other Regal Cinema. The difference is that outside the theater you’ll see pool tables, a full bar and the ability to eat dinner and tables without ever seeing a movie. So, they are selling either the dinner or the show or both. We were there for both, so we entered the theater.

The movie chairs are comfortable and contain a decent sized table to eat dinner while you watch the movie

Under the table is a menu with a variety of food and drinks. A Regal waiter/waitress will appear to take your order shortly after you enter the theater. He has a credit card scanner and printer attached to him and will take payment when you order.

An added creative twist are menu items being a variation on a movie title. EXAMPLE. it’s not just popcorn, it’s “Children of the Popcorn” Check out the IT-themed drink options:

Who wants to sip on some Pennywise Punch while watching IT: Chapter Two?

We were surprised how fast the order came. Sure, it was just ice cream and nachos, but the order literally came to us hot and ready within five minutes. We also had our water glasses refilled before the movie started.

Will we visit another Cinnebar? Absolutely. It was a great experience. That makes two firsts for us while we were in Las Vegas celebrating our 30 year anniversary. We also watched our very first HDX movie.

If you are interested in the history of dine-in movie theaters, eater.com dives in, forks first.