Hooky Entertainment Cary — Local services in Cary

Horrible experience to say the least. We arrive to see a much anticipated movie. We scheduled it for 1025 as we have young kids.

We arrive on time. No one is checking tickets or anything, ok, we find theater. Walking into theater the ground is gross. Stepping over brooms and dustpans as i walked up the stairs (I eventually moved them near the door) Then we sit there with others for nearly 30min before we get up to figure out what is going on. No movie.

"Oops sorry about that" we are told

Movie starts.

Then all the lights in the theater go on full blast .... I have to go out again to ask them to turn lights off. "Oops sorry" they say.

Next --- Wrong movie is played. We figure that out because the previews... Joker movie, marvel movies, violent movies, insanely loud. Guns, smoking joints, soooooo loud!!!!! Hurt my ears and we have young kids. I get up again.

"Oops we played the wrong movie"

At this point it's almost an hour after start time.

They start the right movie. ( The wild robot is a great movie.... )

But It starts with more previews. I go back out again and ask if we can skip them as we are over 1hr past start time at this point and the previous previews terrified our kids. The kids are so anxious at this point.

"No we can't. I would have to call corporate," My response is, "ok, call corporate and explain"

Then I reinstate how this whole experience has been literally horrific (horror movie previews shown to a theater of kids) and I'd like a refund ($100 to see a movie for our family, this is a treat, a rare thing we do, and now we are over an hour late seeing it. My toddler is losing it, we are all stressed, wiped away tears)

The "manager" says I understand that we could get a refund to go to so and so counter AFTER the movie is over to get it. Two other families witnessed this.

So we go to the counter afterwards to be told by this new manager that sorry we can't get refunds because you saw the movie. Reluctantly they gave us passes to come back - but in all honesty that customer service is absolutely horrible in this place. I'm not sure I want to come back.

It's sad too because it's a great venue, comfy seats, and has so much potential. Why do mismanaged? What's the deal? Why would a kids movie start over an hour late? Hopefully 'corporate' makes some changes here or they will be out of business.

You want to know the best part? Is the people for the NEXT showing started coming in half way through ours. They were so confused. No one told them otherwise. I stood at the stairs and let everyone know coming in that they messed up and that ours was not done yet. I basically did the job that the staff should have been doing (when the management office was full of people standing around) Even one of the employees told me the place is a disorganized mess as I was leaving.

I've worked in customer service, customer success, client facing roles. I'm not new to this world. Today was incredibly mismanaged and horrible.

Had my kids not been there and looking forward to see wild robot we would have left.... But I stuck it out because they were so excited to see it.

Just wish the morning went better. Do better. Show some empathy when you mess up and show horrific and loud previews during a...

I’ll start out with the pros: We love the convenience of this theater to our home and it makes for a quick, easy date night. 

We loved the Lux Box seats which have a little bit of a separation between your party and the next party.

The reclining, heated seats were fabulous [and literally the reason we’ll return].

The QR menu ordering system is intuitive and easy to use. The food and beverages was delivered quickly.

Now, I’ll talk about some areas of improvement: When we walked in, we noticed that all the ticket machines were down so guests had to go the concession stand for assistance.

We prepaid for our tickets but we weren’t sure what to do so we stood at the concession stand for a bit without any assistance. When standing at the concession stand, two team members were helping one guest purchase tickets but made no notice of us standing there - no greeting, no be with you in a moment, etc. In addition, there were 2 or 3 team members huddled at the other end of the concession stand who offered no help either. They barely looked up from their conversation.

We then walked up to the team member at the stand entering the theaters and he assisted but very briefly. He told us what theater we were in and to use the QR reader on our seats to order food.

When trying to find our theater, it would have been fabulous if the signs above the doors actually read the movie showing to ensure we were headed in the right direction and had the correct theater.

Let’s talk about the food - Now, we know it is movie theater but paying $40 for the quality of food and beverage that we received is crazy.

My drink cup had a lipstick stain on it that I didn’t notice until the movie had a lighter scene and I caught it out of the corner of my eye. I didn’t wear lipstick or even chapstick to the movies tonight so I knew it was not mine. I immediately stopped drinking it at that point. For Lux Box seats, the glasses are bigger restaurant style glasses instead of concession stand cups which I will ask for in the future.

The pizza we ordered was awful and my husband couldn’t stand to eat more than the slice he started and wouldn’t let me try it. He said it was the worst pizza he has ever had and usually even bad pizza is ok.

I had high hopes for the chicken tenders and fries but I was let down as well. As soon as my food got to me, my fries were cold so I couldn’t enjoy them. I couldn’t understand why they were so cold because the chicken tenders were so hot that I couldn’t touch them for a bit. I’ll also note that neither of us were provided with cutlery for our meals. While I enjoyed the light breading on the chicken tenders, it had no flavor and even the BBQ sauce didn’t help. Also, because it was so dark in the theater and the texture of the chicken was a bit chewy, I was afraid that maybe it was undercooked so I couldn’t finish them for fear of getting sick.

Because of this food experience, we decided not to order anything else like alternate meals, popcorn, or desserts/sweets as we just weren’t sure of the quality. [Photos provided were captured at the end of the movie when there was more light in...

I had an unpleasant experience here almost a month ago and reached out to the manager email as well as the email provided for regular representatives to assist you and I received a response from neither party. I am extremely disappointed and the recent reviews are definitely accurate. I would not recommend this specific paragon theater. Waiting almost a month for a response is absolutely ridiculous when the automated email that they send back states “Please note that, due to the high volume of emails we receive, it may take up to 24 hours to hear back from us.”

I’ve attached a bit of the email that I sent below to give a little insight on my experience with this theater.

6/18/2023: I am writing to express my disappointment with my recent experience at the Paragon Theater on June 17th. I had anticipated a remarkable and luxurious ambiance, but unfortunately, it fell short of my expectations. I had purchased online tickets on the same day for the Lux box dine-in seats, specifically intending to enjoy a meal while watching the movie. It's important to note that the Lux box dine-in seats are priced higher than the regular recliner seats, as I wanted to create a special date night for myself and my husband.

I made the ticket purchase at 1:10 PM for the 9:15 PM showtime. Considering the movie theater's expensive prices and our plan to eat exclusively at the venue, we refrained from eating beforehand. We arrived at the theater around 5:45 PM and engaged in other activities to make our visit more enjoyable. At around 9:00 PM, we headed towards our movie, anticipating a perfect conclusion to our night—a delightful movie experience accompanied by a satisfying meal.

I placed our food and drink order 10 minutes after the movie began, precisely at 9:25 PM. The staff acknowledged the order at 9:26 PM, and our drinks arrived promptly within 5-7 minutes of ordering. However, the problem arose when we had to wait for our food. After 22 minutes of anticipation, I became concerned, while my husband grew increasingly frustrated as he had not eaten all day and was eagerly awaiting our meal.

Given that our movie had a runtime of only 1 hour and 36 minutes, my husband could no longer tolerate the delay and decided to inquire about our food at approximately 10:13 PM. To our disbelief, I received a notification stating that the food was on its way, which was highly inconvenient considering the movie was nearing its end. The food finally arrived approximately 10 minutes after that notification, leaving us famished and disappointed. My husband had ordered wings and fries with sauces, while I had ordered chicken tenders and fries with honey mustard sauce. Unfortunately, my chicken tenders were in an unappetizing state, falling apart, and there was no sauce provided.

This experience did not meet the expectations associated with the price I paid and the reputation of...