Strand 3 — Local services in Grinnell

Visited for the 1st time on 2/6/24. This a 3 screen, under 100 seat capacity theatre in a mid-sized town. Most days of the week they only do 1 showing per day for each room, all starting within an hour of each other. Seems like they only bring in mostly children's & "all ages" type films.... only seen 1 rated R film advertised here in the few months I've lived in Grinnell. When it comes to the theatre building, it looks like developers tore to the bare brink to the businesses between them; The developers never bothered putting up walls for the theatres.. can see from the aesthetic of former windows that got bricked up from businesses past between them. It makes the common area look interesting, but it is also basic when it comes to furnishings. The theatre room itself, all the seats are plush leather but with rigid back support because there is no recline feature since not enough room between rows. The theatre screens are small in comparison to any other theatre I've been to... approx. 200". My Number 1 con was how unclean the theater room was... this was the only showing, only 2 other patrons other than myself, yet many of the seats have debris and stains on them (even a seat next to me that had an obvious urine stain from the near front middle of the seat running down it)... so obviously they do not clean AT LEAST on a daily basis. Even their restroom smelled like a transit station restroom.. urine. I've had close to a dozen different restaurant & retail jobs in my lifetime.. and thankfully not one allowed those types of unsanitary conditions to carry over to the next day(s). Considering how dead the place was (obviously when only 2 working) seems like after a good 30 minutes after the last film started, 1 of them could of done...

Awesome, 3 screen theater that's well managed. Rachel is the manager of the Strand and she is one of the most professional and helpful managers I've ever met. I dropped my wallet while I was watching a late showing and by the time I returned home and realized it, the theater was closed. I left a message on their phone that evening and called again in the morning. Luckily, I spoke with Rachel and she said she did have my wallet and I picked it up after lunch the next day when the theater opened. As expected, all my money was gone and with how dishonest people can be these days, I wasn't surprised. I quickly called Rachel back once I realized my money was gone, just to let her know. I wasn't going to make a big fuss, I love this small town theater and want to give it my business. I simply wanted to inform her of the situation as she would likely know who was on staff and cleaning up the night before. We hung up the phone and to my surprise, 10 minutes later Rachel called me back and noted that she had recovered my money!

All this to say, the Strand is led with integrity and honesty, the ticket prices are cheap and the theater is clean and well kept. It isn't your big city, huge screen theater, but it's a quaint, small town theater...

Just to be clear here when I say the employees play cards in their down time I understand this is something they do out of boredom. But setting up the entire of stack of cards right in front of me as in shuffling and laying them out in stacks on your side and then the stacka for the employee on their side your playing against, then playing several moves in front of me while rudely telling me your help me in a minute while I have been standing their for at least a minute in the middle of my movie just wanting a refill is rude. Then sighing loudly or rolling eyes and acting aggitated with me while I stand their dumbfounded and polite. The card playing thing has happened on at least two occasions....