Few customs are more ingrained in the American psyche than that of spending an evening going out to dinner and seeing a movie. It's a pastime of which almost anyone can partake-anyone with $10.00 and a couple of hours to spare. It's also a pastime that begs the question, why this particular combination of events? Why dinner and a movie? Why not, say, lunch and a movie? Or a movie and a drink? Upon strenuous reflection, I'd say that the dinner-and-a-movie evenings that we all know so well have their roots in the age-old tradition of being entertained while dining. Although today's pizza-and-a-thriller combo may not seem to have anything in common with a flamboyant medieval feast (a circus-like, all-night long repast highlighted with blackbird's flying out of pies, jugglers, and musicians), they do spring from that same human desire: to slake hunger and boredom at the same time.

However, since the untimely demise of the drive-in movie theater/restaurant, there are very few places where you can actually eat dinner (popcorn does not qualify as dinner) and watch a movie at the same time-in public, that is. Movies watched at home on pay-per-view or a VCR just aren't the same, and we won't even begin to talk about that Friday night debacle where two actors actually pretend to cook in between the commercials. Except for a handful of places across the country, dinner-and-a-movie evenings usually take place in two distinct venues: one for dinner, one for the movie.