Studio C! Meridian Mall
1999 Central Park DriveWe knew Saturday was going to be a really long day in East Lansing.
The kids were competing in the Howard E. Van Camp Invitational figure skating competition at the Biggby Coffee Ice Cube. All of B’s events were on Friday so he had nothing to do on Saturday.
L had a really long day. She and J left the hotel at 7:30 AM to get to the rink and warmed up for a 9:30 AM practice. She then had events at 11:45, 4:40, and 7:45. I knew it was going to be hard to keep B entertained for that long. None of his friends were at this competition so he was kind of on his own and there’s only so much YouTube you can watch in a day.
My parents stuck around for L’s first skate but then they headed back to Illinois before it got dark. Since it was just us, I asked B if he wanted to see a movie. There really wasn’t much out that either of us wanted to see but it was a way to kill a couple of hours.
The only movie really appropriate for him was Kung Fu Panda 4. I don’t know if he’s seen the first four movies or not but it didn’t really matter. It was something to do.
I chose Studio C! Meridan Mall because they had an early enough show time that we could get back for L’s skate just before 5:00.
Studio C! is part of the same theater chain as Celebration Cinema. The location in Okemos is on Central Park Drive. It’s on the northwest side of the Meridian Mall in a building just past the main parking lot for the shopping center. The building does have it’s own parking lot to the west but I drove past that and just parked in the mall lot across the street.
Studio C! is much fancier than the typical Celebration Cinema. When we walked in, B went, “Whoa..this place is nice!” Granted, I usually take him to Kalamazoo 10 but he was right, this place was fancy.
It was an early afternoon show so ticket sales were at the concession counter. I got us two tickets for the show then started in on snacks. They have a full menu from Oscar’s Bistro but we kept it to movie theater snacks. I got us each a medium popcorn then got myself a large Pepsi and B a medium slushy. The cost, including tickets, was just over $50.
What surprised me is B didn’t want candy. I actually didn’t even see candy at first because it was on a rack behind us. He looked at but then came back saying he just wanted popcorn.
There is also a pretty solid adult drink menu. I didn’t think it was appropriate to grab a beer for a cartoon…also, it was the middle of the afternoon….I didn’t need to day drink at the movie theater. But it’s there as an option if you want.
Like I mentioned, there is an Oscar’s Bistro in this location and you can have an actual restaurant meal if you chose. You can take it in to the theater…and there are options for wait services in the auditorium (I’ll get there) but there’s also a space near the concession stand where you can eat and have a drink before going in. It’s like dinner and a movie but only having to go to one place.
There are six screens at Studio C! with three on each side. The entrances to each auditorium is marked by a large number hanging over the door. Didn’t matter. I still took us in to the wrong one at first. I couldn’t find the row our seats were supposed to be in and realized my mistake.
We were in auditorium 2 which is one of the larger auditorium. I let B pick the seats and he took us to the almost top row. There was still one behind us but that was premium seating and I didn’t feel like paying for that.
The seats in this theater have definitely seen better days. The leather is pretty beat up but they’re comfortable enough. The “regular” seats in the theater are not recliners. They’re pretty standard theater seats although they do have a little more flexibility to lean back. B has only been to Celebration Cinemas in Portage and all the seats there are recliners so he was a little mad at me I didn’t pay the extra for the recliner seats here.
The premium seats, in the row behind us, were much nicer. They have the ability to recline and they have a tray table for snacks. When we accidently went in the wrong auditorium (theater 3) all of the seats in that auditorium were like this. So that made B extra annoyed because he had already gotten comfortable with his popcorn on the tray and his feet up by the time I realized we were in the wrong spot. These seats also come with wait service. Someone would come in and take orders then come back a few minutes later with popcorn and drinks. These seats were about $10 more than the regular seat.
I was fine with where we were sitting. We were just there to kill time. I had a big bag of popcorn…..
…and an even bigger Pepsi.
The movie was…meh…at best. It was fine. There were some cute spots and we both laughed at some of the absurdity but it isn’t a movie either of us will ever watch again.
I’m glad we got away from the rink for a while. Like B said when we walked in, Studio C! is a fancier theater than we usually go to. I like the food options Celebration Cinemas have but that wasn’t something we really needed on this day. We needed to kill a few hours and this was a great place to do that. I wish there had been better movies playing, but it is what is is. We still had a great time and it’s hard to be mad at sitting in a theater with a big bag of popcorn.
SW Michigan Dining 