Necessity is the mother of invention. If there was ever a time to believe this, that time is right now. Hillcrest Restaurant in the Durbanville Wine Valley is doing just that and transforming their offering into the Hillcrest Roadhouse Restaurant.
A first for Cape Town – the restaurant parking area will be converted into a drive-in style area, plus you can order food and have it delivered to your car while you social-distance and enjoy the movie on offer.
Owner of Hillcrest Restaurant, Mike Crawford, announced via Facebook on Friday [July 3] that the restaurant will be changing into a roadhouse with a “Monster Big Screen” added to the parking area to host 100 cars for a movie.
“I had this idea pre-lockdown but we weren’t able to conceptualise it because we went into a heavy lockdown, so we shelved the concept. We brought it back now under the new Level 3. We are basically turning the restaurant into a roadhouse,” said Crawford.
The concept mimics a combination of a drive-in and a roadhouse, which were phased out years ago when movie theatres became fashionable.
“So people will drive in and park, order their food from a menu which you can pick up off QR codes on your phone. It will be waiter-served as well. And while people are in their cars we will be showing movies,” he explained.
They are currently busy with tying up lose ends with relevant departments for movie rights.
“We will screen predominantly some of the old school movies, which varies from comedies to action, romcoms and something for the kids as well. We are trying to initiate this on Friday, July 10. To start off we will be doing it on the weekend – Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays – with two screenings on a Saturday.”
If the trend catches on and there is a demand for more movies, they plan to screen movies every Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, two on a Saturday and one on a Sunday.
And what can you expect to pay? Crawford says they are trying to keep costs as low as possible and are still finalising ticket prices – but expect to pay anything between R50 – R75 per person.