Times Theatre & Public House — Attraction in Seaside

We had a horrible experience at the Times Theater & Public house, on what was supposed to be a big day for my daughter. Both her and her family were seated and ignored for over 45 minutes before we left with her in tears. She and I were talking about it this morning and she reminded me of how much it hurt her, and even though this was two years ago now, I’m compelled to share what happened there.

We took our daughter to visit Seaside for her 8th birthday two years ago. It was a pretty big deal and exciting trip for her because her 8th birthday was the 7th of August, 2022, which was the same day as the Seaside Centennial celebration. And we can very rarely afford to take any kind of vacation.

We were there three days. We arrived the day before her birthday and left the day after.

The day of her birthday, we started with an early pancake breakfast at another lovely cafe in town. We played on the beach, and we watched the parade on the promenade later that day. The parade was especially fun for her, because one of the parade participants heard it was her birthday and they stopped the parade to sing happy birthday to her! It was great.

For dinner, she picked the restaurant that was in the theater because it looked fun.

We came in and were seated. It was busy, for sure, and we expected a wait, but we were shocked at what happened. Someone took came to take our drink order about 5 minutes in. Then, they disappeared. We sat for 5, 10, 20 minutes, expecting our drinks, and seeing other parties come in, get seated, place their order and get their food in that time, while we were still waiting for our drinks.

My daughter was beginning to feel left out and ignored, on her birthday, at the fun-looking dinner place that she picked out for her special day.

We ended up waiting a full 45 minutes, before we finally realized that we had been completely forgotten, or maybe just ignored.

My wife and I finally ran out of patience and decided we needed to find another place, after wasting nearly an hour of my daughter’s 8th birthday being ignored.

We stood up and walked out as my daughter started to cry, almost uncontrollably, like SHE was the reason we were ignored and no one came to help us.

I’m sure that something behind the scenes happened that led to us being forgotten about, but she couldn’t understand why she got that treatment on her birthday.

We ended up going somewhere else that was just as busy and the waitstaff saw my daughter had been crying. We told here what happened and why it was a special day for her, and they took extra special care of us. They even gave her a free desert.

I really wanted to like the Times, but they were instrumental in devastating our daughter on her...

The seats are comfy, even for a shorty like me, and it was great watching Top Gun on the big screen again. (I'd love to see the original Star Wars, and Matrix again, not to mention I've never seen the Wizard of Oz or classic Christmas movies on the Silver Screen before.) Hint, hint! My food was so-so and it was really awkward getting my bill during the middle of the film and trying to pay in the dark. The wait staff had to go back and forth several times: to find prices; to bring salt; to answer questions. I'm sure this was all disruptive to the other film-goers. We did arrive early and placed our initial orders to avoid this, but things cropped up. SUGGESTION for the business: Create the ability to start a tab, so payments can be handled after the movie, in full light, or have the staff carry a small clipboard (for signing receipts) with a booklight attached. Create an App, for ordering on smart phone, paying, asking questions or getting more condiments. Also, it would be great if it had the menu with prices. At least for the things that don't change, such as: popcorn; candy; sodas and etc.. PRO TIP for film goers: Get there early; order ahead and make sure if you need condiments to ask ahead: have the card you want to pay with (or the cash) set aside so you aren't fumbling in the dark to find it; and your smartphone light or a small flashlight. A wet wipe might be a good idea, if you are eating fries...

UPDATE: On my second visit to see Almost Famous with my kids and I fell in love with this place. I can’t wait to go back to Seaside and visit again to try some food with the great IPA. You can access the in theater bar from the balcony via steps INSIDE THE AUDITORIUM which is such a cool feature — though I didn’t see a bartender when I went down there so I popped out to the lobby— because who wants to leave for more beer and miss their movie but also who wants to go beerless for the second half!? Staff is super friendly and it’s just a great affordable place that does the best job of any pub theater I’ve seen in terms of having it both ways ie a grown up establishment that allows kids.

August 7, 2019: There’s a balcony which is pretty cool. Seats are comfortable, tickets are cheap at $5 for adults. Beer and popcorn was a little pricey but not out of control by movie theater standards. They do cool stuff here like showing old films as well as more independent films. A cool...