How Movie Menus Are Made: An Interview With Alamo Drafthouse Chef Brad Sorenson
Pickle Popcorn, Wicked specials, and Reflections on "Eatertainment"
From the full bars in its lobbies, strict talking and texting bans, and elevated in-theater dining experiences, Alamo Drafthouse Cinema has become a cinephile favorite since its inception nearly thirty years ago. This week, Film Flavor was lucky enough to interview Alamo Drafthouse Cinema’s Executive Chef Brad Sorenson about his remarkable career, and the process behind creating Alamo’s best dishes. Let’s dig in!
Some quotes in this interview have been edited and condensed for length and clarity.
Chef Sorenson’s Journey to In-Theater Dining
When Chef Brad Sorenson was first approached by a friend he met in a rec league softball team about working at Alamo Drafthouse, he was already a huge fan of the theater chain. Still, after a career of working at independent restaurants across the U.S., Sorenson says he never considered corporate work until Alamo came knocking.
Lucky for us food-loving moviegoers, Sorenson took the plunge, and has spent nearly a decade developing menu items for the beloved cinema chain.
“It is an extremely unique chef job.” Sorenson says. "There can’t be more than a handful of folks that have a job similar to mine.”
How Alamo’s Movie-Themed Menus Are Made
“We seat 150 people at a time every fifteen, twenty minutes, which no sane chef would ever do.”
Anyone who has ever dined at an Alamo Drafthouse Cinema is familiar with the chain’s movie-themed specials and limited-time menus. When it comes to the process of creating these offerings, Chef Sorenson says, “There’s no real exact science to it. It all kind of depends on the inspiration and the style of movie.”
On-Screen Foods
“Sometimes, things are kind of put on a platter for us,” Sorenson tells us. “A movie like The Menu will come out and we’ve got a really good relationship with the studio. I’ll get to recreate the food from the film and do a special where you’ll see [a dish] on the screen and be able to have it in front of you.”
Research
Other films require a little digging. “Some of the inspiration will come from kind of nerdy research,” Sorenson explains. He says he started writing specials for Alamo around the time superhero movies were “going through the roof.”
“I’ll pull things from old comic books. The chimichanga for Deadpool was on the nose. For the last Avengers movie, we wanted to wrap things up and give people the shawarma from the end credits scene in the first one.”
Regionality
Alamo Drafthouse has also presented menus that align with the filmmaker’s local community and upbringing. Chef Sorenson tells us that, when working on a menu for a screening of Kumail Ali Nanjiani’s The Big Sick, they conjured up some of Nanjiani’s favorite foods from his Pakistani childhood. “We had a potato biryani, because [Najiani] described it as his favorite food growing up. And so while his film was showing, our guests could order the regional dish that you might not expect in a movie theater.”
Humor
Finally, humor is always a potential element in any of Alamo’s special menu items. “One of my favorite ones was the ‘I Am Froot’ shake that we did for the Guardians (of the Galaxy) movies,” Sorenson shares, a play on the franchise’s “Groot” character and his tendency to announce his name. “No real connection there other than it made me laugh.”
This punny sensibility was also showcased in Alamo’s recent Beetlejuice Beetlejuice menu offerings, including a “Tally-Me-Banana Pudding” dessert option, paying homage to the famous musical dinner scene in the original film. “With our service style not having that traditional ‘And May I bring you a dessert menu?’ [moment], we have to try and integrate desserts in a way that folks are thinking about it the whole time.”
Color
From green Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles-themed drinks to Deadpool-red cocktails, color is another thing Chef Sorenson keeps in mind when creating Alamo’s specials.
With the highly-anticipated Wicked film adaptation being released next month, starring Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande, Alamo Drafthouse gave us a sneak peek at it’s Wicked Holiday Wonder Menu, premiering in Alamo locations nationwide beginning November 19th.
One dish, the “Shiz University Chicken Wrap,” starts as a grilled-chicken and arugula wrap with fresh sliced tomato and goat cheese. When guests place their orders, they may opt for a “Make It Wicked” option, which adds bacon, double cheese, and a tortilla wrap as green as Elphaba’s skin.
In that same vein, another Wicked menu item starts off as a double cheeseburger dubbed the “Yellow Brick Burger” with the option to “Make It Emerald” by adding sliced avocado and alfalfa sprouts. “It adds some vegetables for you to feel good about it,” Sorenson says.
Aesthetics
When crafting Alamo’s menu, Sorenson also keeps noise, smell, and dim theater lighting top of mind.
“We do try to take all the aesthetics into consideration, because, after all, you’re in a dark movie theater with others,” says Sorenson. “One of my earlier specials was pork and pineapple ‘ke-bubs’ for an X-Men movie,” Sorenson recalls, “but I was still breaking out of my old chef mentality.” The dish, served on a twelve-inch round plate, proved to be a little cumbersome. “We kept getting comments from guests that it was impossible to eat it in the theater, because you had to take a knife, a fork, and you’re hitting a ceramic plate in the dark, and that was the last time I plated anything like that for these specials.”
In the end, Sorenson says both fish and knife and fork work are avoided “unless it is too good to pass up.”
Production
At the end of the day, Sorenson says Alamo Drafthouse menu specials and limited-time offers are also a great way to test out new menu ideas, noting “a lot of this stuff will end up on menus down the road.”
In addition to gauging guests' interest in the dish, Chef Sorenson and his team must take into consideration the unique challenges that come with serving full meals to a packed movie theater.
“We seat 150 people at a time every fifteen, twenty minutes, which no sane chef would ever do,” says Sorenson. “We have to be able to make sure we’re able to perform it really well.”
Pickles and Popcorn: Elevating Concessions
“I’m currently working on developing a dill pickle popcorn! I think that was the official spoiler for that dish.”
Recently, Film Flavor shared a little bit about the history of pickles at movie theater concessions in the Southern U.S.. Given Alamo Drafthouse is a Texas-based company, and fried pickle spears are a staple on the chain’s menu, we couldn’t resist asking Chef Sorenson about the popularity of the peculiar snack.
“The pickle in the south really kind of stems from c-stores and convenience stores and traditional concessions,” Sorenson shares, “Our fried pickles are definitely in tribute to that in some ways.”
In fact, Chef Sorenson tells us, any attempt to remove these pickles from Alamo’s menu has resulted in protest. About three years ago, Sorenson says he tried switching the pickle spears out for pickle fries. “The revolt from our regulars was almost immediate!”
In Sorenson’s view, not only are pickles at the concession stand a “Southern movie tradition, but the fried pickle spears at Alamo Drafthouse are a firm Alamo tradition as well.”
A Popcorn Exclusive
Alamo also offers elevated versions of other classic movie theater concessions, like popcorn, with added flavors like truffle herb or churro bites.
“I’m currently working on developing a dill pickle popcorn!” Sorenson shares. “I think that was the official spoiler for that dish. That will come out sometime in 2025… I wouldn’t be surprised if it becomes our most popular popcorn, as far as the seasoned kinds go. And it’s really fun to be able to work in angles like that.”
“Coming to an Alamo is ‘Eatertainment.’ It’s supposed to be a little over the top. So we should always strive to have these options that are different while maintaining our standards. You know, if you just want a bowl of popcorn, it’s the best theater popcorn that’s out there.”
Alamo’s Influence in the “Eatertainment” World
The first time Chef Sorenson ate a meal at a movie theater was on a date at an Alamo Drafthouse in Austin. “I don’t remember the movie,” Sorenson admits. “I just remember the pizza and the wings... I just remember it blowing my mind and almost instantly becoming a fan.”
It’s not just guests that find Alamo’s in-theater dining novel. The company’s influence on other theater chains is evident. “I mean, you see the trend in the industry,” Sorenson explains. “More and more places have food offerings, whether they’re trying to do it like us, or whether there’s extended concessions. AMC’s have cute little bars in them now. You know, we strive to be the best damn cinema and I know that other places strive to be like us.”
Chef Sorenson’s Favorite Food To Eat At The Movies
What is Chef Sorenson’s favorite food to order when watching a movie?
“Oh, that’s a pretty easy answer for me nowadays,” the Chef says with a smile. “I am a sucker for a soft pretzel, dipping into our queso. I grew up in Michigan where… there was ‘queso’ but we called it ‘chips and cheese' and there was no flavor, it was just melted cheese and tortilla chips. And I’m a really, really big fan of our fried chicken.” After revamping their chicken program in 2018, Sorenson says Alamo’s fried chicken is now hand-breaded to-order.
Favorite Food-Film Moments
Out of all the food-film moments we’ve written about on Film Flavor, Chef Sorenson managed to mention an unexpected moment in 2022’s Everything Everywhere All At Once. The film, Sorenson says, is one of his favorite movies he’s seen in years.
“There’s a scene in the film where… the character ends up biting into their chapstick.” While the chef admits chapstick isn’t exactly food, it led him to create a chapstick dessert for a special screening of the film. “I went on the internet and bought empty chapstick tubes and then we filled them with strawberry semifreddo. And [at] the moment in the movie when he bit into the chapstick, we served everybody a strawberry semifreddo dessert served in a chapstick tube… And it actually would come out when you twisted it, it was the coolest thing.”
Another one of his recent foodie-film favorites is The Menu. “I really like the scene in The Menu where the snobby culinary-phile gets sent into the kitchen,” Sorenson says, referring to the moment where Nicholas Holt’s epicurious snob of a character is forced by a rogue chef (Ralph Fiennes) to whip up a dish in the kitchen. The scene underscores the tendency of foodies to exaggerate their cooking skills. “There’s a lot of folks who, you know, talk a good game and can go to all the good restaurants but ‘I need you to make me lamb and leeks under pressure, right now.’ You know?”
“It gave me a little PTSD,” Sorenson admits. “I come from a very ‘Yes Chef,’ white coat… they would never let me have facial hair. That’s the background I come from… But what a great twist! As a chef, I thought that was an excellent film.”
What’s Next at Alamo Drafthouse?
Next month, Alamo will begin screening Wicked, with its limited-time Wicked-inspired menu available at Alamo locations nationwide beginning November 19th.
When the holiday season arrives, Chef Sorenson says Alamo will continue its tradition of screening Christmas and holiday movie classics alongside candy-cane shakes, homemade sugar cookies, and hot cocoa.
While Chef Sorenson couldn’t share much about what’s on the books for 2025, we here at Film Flavor are eagerly awaiting the pickle-flavored popcorn he’s got in the works.
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Fascinating look behind the scenes!