Bring the Alamo to Houston!

Good news: The Alamo Drafthouse Cinema is opening their second theater in the Houston area next Friday. Bad news: It’s in Katy, not Houston.

If you’re not familiar with the Alamo Drafthouse, here’s a brief tutorial: Take a traditional movie theater, remove every other row of seats and replace with rows of tables, add food and beverages (including the adult kind) and, viola! – you have the Alamo Drafthouse. It began in Austin in 1997 and has expanded to four cinemas in the capital city, one in San Antonio, and now two in Houston (the original Houston location is in West Oaks Mall at Highway 6 and Westheimer).

Besides being able to drink beer while you’re watching a movie (which we love to do), the best thing about Alamo is the “Signature Series,” which features cult or just plain weird movies and animation specials. Our favorite, though, is The Sinus Show, which is similar to Mystery Science Theater 3000. Houstonist caught The Sinus Show parodying Karate Kid and Britney Spears’ Crossroads a couple of years ago – we laughed so hard that beer spewed out our noses!

Houstonist is happy that we’re at least getting another Alamo Drafthouse in the area next week, and that we can catch The Sinus Show there on Feb. 9 and a midnight showing of Labyrinth on Feb. 10 and 11. However, we’re puzzled at why a franchise hasn’t been open inside the loop, where we think it would have more success. I guess we’ll have to settle for a cocktail at the River Oaks Theater for now.