Vine Cinema & Alehouse — Restaurant in Livermore

My brother rented the Vine for his 40 something Birthday. We used to go to the Vine as kids, that’s alll Livermore had. I moved away & returned 23 years later & I was glad to see it still there. I love the new concept as an ale house too. It’s a smaller venue, and has far more relaxed & comfortable seating - even Love seats if you want to snuggle with your date during the film, or put an unruly child between the two of you. They also have real tables to put your beverages, food & stuff. We loved it and the staff was awesome! Very attentive & accommodating to all of the people he invited. The Vine has definitely “adultified”, which is a nice change. I’d nearly sworn off movie theaters packed with unruly teens & sticky seats & floors. I think the industry has realized it has to make it more convenient & comfortable to attract adults back. I like the new theater in town too, with the reserved recliners. - but this was far more cozy & intimate. I tried taking my nephews to the other theater w/my Mom. We boxed in all 3 between us, but then we’re too far to just lean over a couple of kids & whisper. You have to get up & walk closer to even exchange little comments, such as who’s taking who to the bathroom or getting more popcorn- it was distracting. The Vine is awesome. Because of the different seating options, you can still communicate & not feel like you’re bothering all the rows behind you. It was an awesome experience! I would definitely recommend for date night or a birthday party. My Step-Sis rented it for her son’s b-day too. Again- totally awesome experience & I think they are super reasonable for private gigs, especially during the morning & before their first showings of whatever is playing. I love it! Great conversion & a lot of fun regardless of age. Also the food & adult beverages are definitely a nice bonus. Will be doing more with them...

I feel so fortunate to have this place to see art-house movies way out here in Livermore. The quirk of being able to have food and drink while watching the movie makes it that much more unique and enjoyable.

I feel, however, that they are wasting a golden opportunity. They show only 2 to 3 movies at a time, and these same movies remain for 3 or 4 weeks before they rotate to another movie. I guess they don't want my money! I am the kind of movie lover who would go there 3 times a week if they had that many movies for me to see. As it is, I go there 3 times a month maybe because that's all there is to see. When I go, the theater is often quite empty, sometimes only a handful of people. I'm afraid it could go out of business which would really be a shame because it's rare to have a place to see art-house movies. And they have such a potential to fill up the theater if there were more movies to see. Perhaps they have their reasons, i.e. the cost of getting a movie to screen is high? ...

The Vine is an excellent Cinema and we've always enjoyed it but last night we had a bad experience. We happened to have a coupon from our real estate agent (Co-marketing between the agent and the Vine) for free tickets on the third Tuesday of the month. The person working the ticket booth refused to honor the tickets because "the agent usually comes and greets the guests then we settle up later (something like that, but the ticket has no such wording)". We paid for our tickets because we wanted to see the film and had already planned the evening around it. After returning to discuss again and review the coupon (which had no fine print or exclusions), she refused to address her mistake and refund/credit us the ticket price.

We and our guests will likely not return to this business as the person we dealt with made us feel as if we...