Frank Entertainment Group specializes in providing the utmost entertainment experience to its customers.
Frank Entertainment Group has been in the business of bringing people together at its entertainment venues for more than a century. “We started as a company in the movie business, bringing families together through entertainment and now we are bringing family and friends together to ‘Eat. Drink. Socialize.,’” President and CEO Bruce Frank says.
Movies are just one of the entertainment options offered at Frank Entertainment properties. An upscale bowling experience is combined with dining in the company’s Revolutions concept. CineBowl & Grille combines 12 movie screens with 16 to 24 lanes of bowling and a 125-seat restaurant. The company plans to have 40 venues in 10 states by the end of 2018.
Frank Theatres is adapting to be part of the biggest industry trend at the moment: redefining dinner and a movie. The company’s theaters are now “Dine & Recline,” featuring the in-theater dining experience with recliner seating. “In some cases, not every facility can be a Dine & Recline, but they can all be dine-in and there are multiple ways to accomplish that,” Frank explains. “Recliners and dine-in cinema is the future of the industry.”
Frank Entertainment Group recently partnered with a restaurant group to add five new restaurant brands to its entertainment venues: Burger & Beer Joint, Harvest, City Tap House, Johnny Mañana’s and Flair Street. Existing venues will be retrofitted to include one of the restaurants and all new locations will include one of the five brands.
“We are very focused on bringing in recognizable, branded diversity of foods to what we are doing,” Frank says. “Choosing the brand for a venue will depend on the demographic and need profile. Where we find that the market could use or do well with a farm-to-table, upscale concept we can put Harvest or Flair Street. A middle market would do well with the Burger & Beer Joint, Johnny Mañana’s and City Tap House.”
Meeting Expectations
Frank Entertainment continues to focus on providing its customers with an exceptional experience every time they visit one of its venues. “We are at a point where the trend has morphed into nicer experiences,” Frank says. “That can include the traditional quick-service in a dine-in restaurant to having a very high-end experience with $100 bottles of wine, for example. The diversity and range depends on the geography.”
The company’s venues appeal to many demographics. CineBowl & Grille, for example, is an upscale environment that offers dining, entertainment and recreation in one building. Revolutions features American cuisine, a high-energy bar atmosphere, the Stadium sports amphitheater, 20 boutique-style bowling lanes and a full redemption video arcade. In addition to featuring 32 different sporting events, Stadium also features live music and can be used as a comedy club.
Frank Entertainment Group plans to continue focusing on the growth of its CineBowl & Grille and Revolutions venues. “We are just continuing to expand the uses of our total entertainment environment facilities,” Frank notes.
Enhanced Entertainment
Frank Entertainment Group is enhancing the customer experience by implementing online food ordering later this year. To attract new customers, Frank Entertainment Group will continue to focus more heavily on its marketing efforts. “We are doing quarterly prize drawings, email initiatives and a lot more social media,” Frank says. “Each of our locations are now developing a marketing manager so they can push us out to the public more.”
By continuously enhancing and expanding its concepts, Frank Entertainment Group has found its greatest challenge to be staffing. The company recruits regularly and provides ongoing training to all employees. “There are very few people that have the qualifications and skills to function in an environment that provides a total highly sensory, highly energetic experience that serves four to six disciplines in one building,” Frank says.
For example, the kitchen in its venues prepare food designed for the auditoriums and dine-in experience, as well as for the bowling lanes, finger foods and small bites for the live music venue and prepare items from the full menu for guests who want a sit-down experience. Bartenders are also creating craft cocktails every month to coincide with a new film. “It’s never stagnant,” Frank says. “It’s a rolling 12-month calendar.”