UA Cinema 90 – Lake City, Florida

What began as a great night out this past Saturday, ended in an experience that left me with a negative impression of a local theater.

UA Cinema 90, located off of US 90 in Lake City, Florida was the theater of choice for our outing this night. They were playing a recently released movie that I had wanted to see. My choice was to go see it at this particular theater, rather than drive and additional 35 minutes to the next city. After the night was over, I had questioned myself about my choice.

We arrived twenty minutes early, and thus had sufficient time for purchasing the tickets and browsing the concession bar for various movie watching goodies. Moving through the ticket line was a quick and painless process. The two clerks working the ticket counter handled the line efficiently and moved us through in no time.

Next stop, the concession bar. Immediately upon getting in line, I could tell this theater lacked proper management. With what I saw as six employees behind the counter, two were actually working, the remaining four were aimlessly walking about, getting in the way of the two clerks who were working, or leaning on the opposite end of the counter talking amongst each other. When my turn came up to make my purchase, I was disgusted at the site I saw. Off in the corner of the concession area, was a pile of popcorn that was swept up and just left, in the corner. It is my thoughts that either the clerks who prepared the popcorn were messy and spilled it often, or the cleanliness of the concession area was not a top priority. Anyhow, i took my chances, got a popcorn and coke, and proceeded off to the theater to watch the movie.

Being spoiled is one excuse I may have here, after frequent visits to larger theaters. The seats at UA Cinema were quite uncomfortable. I found myself shifting numerous times throughout the movie trying to remain comfortable. It was a relief to come to the ending credits and get up.

The bright spot of the evening was in fact the movie itself. UA Cinema 90 does play recent movies, which did impress me, and was the original reasoning behind my choice to come to this theater. The picture quality and sound was far better than I had expected based upon my immediate impression of the place.

Overall, I would not highly recommend this theater, unless someone had no means to go out of town. Otherwise, I would suggest going to Gainesville for a night out and a movie. It is not the worst theater I have even been to, but lacks quite a bit from being a truly good theater. Cleanliness and employee behavior are a big factor in my negative review.