Downtown presents Dinner and a Movie sequel

Building on the success of the original "Dinner and a Movie" promotion, the Downtown Springfield Association is presenting "Dinner and a Movie 2," running now through Jan. 18.

The program offers $5 movie tickets at either Moxie Cinema or Hollywood Theaters for patrons at one of 11 downtown restaurants. DSA decided to reintroduce the program after the success of the summer promotion, which distributed more than 7,500 movie tickets.

"We got so many calls and compliments from customers and restaurant owners about the Dinner and a Movie promotion that we just had to bring it back," DSA Community Development Coordinator Kathryn Vicat said in a news release. "When you find a promotion that works for DSA member businesses and the patrons of downtown that is fun, practical and saves money, it's kind of a no brainer - you just gotta do it again."

The list of participating restaurants is shown at right.

DSA officials told Springfield Business Journal in late September that the movie promotion was popular enough to lead the association to launch D-Tix, a similar program for live theater.

D-Tix offers half-price day-of-show tickets, in conjunction with the Springfield Theatre Alliance, for shows from six theater companies. The Coffee Ethic gets the overflow tickets, which are sold on a first-come, first-served basis. The program is modeled on similar efforts in larger cities such as New York and Chicago.