Cinematic comfort

Main Street Theatre adds leather recliner seating

Many moviegoers at Sauk Centre’s Main Street Theatre have been taking their seats with more comfort lately, now that two of their six auditoriums have been fitted with leather recliner seats with built-in cupholders.

Main Street Theatre owner Jesse Douvier ordered the seats around the beginning of June; it took 10 weeks for them to be made.

“These are American-made seats,” Douvier said.

The 90 seats are installed in Main Street Theatre’s auditoriums three and four. Each auditorium used to have 90 seats for a total of 180, but now they have 45 recliners each for the time being. New electrical lines were also installed in the auditoriums to power the chairs.

Naturally, halving the number of available seats presents challenges for the theatre.

“The business looks a little different this way,” Douvier said. “If I start filling up auditoriums, I’ll have to make more showtimes. It’s a big investment to bring something to our clients.”

The theatre has had the new seats for a few weekends, and Douvier has been hearing plenty of positive feedback from customers who watched movies in auditoriums three and four.

“They love them,” Douvier said. “They’re comfy. It’s a new way of watching a movie.”

The new seats will be especially welcome this weekend when Main Street Theatre starts showing “Avatar: The Way of Water,” starting Thursday, Dec. 15. The movie that will be over three hours long, so Douvier is certain comfortable chairs will be a relief for the audience.

Douvier is considering converting all of his theatre’s seating into leather recliners, but adding them can be quite an investment, so he is waiting to see how the seats perform and are received.

“I want to see how these go over,” Douvier said. “I’m sure they will (be received well) as soon as there’s a little more and better product. It for sure won’t be for a year.”

The new seats are one of the final pieces of the Main Street Theatre renovations Douvier began in 2019; he wanted to have them completed in 2020, but the pandemic interrupted those plans. The other renovations have included new flooring, including carpets – which are the same pattern as the old ones – as well as work on the theatre entryway. Replacement lights for the auditorium aisles are also on their way.

“There are a few other things I’m looking into in the near future,” Douvier said. “I’d like to make the concessions are bigger for different foods. There are a few other things I’m interested in, but we’re going to keep quiet with that.”

For now, with new movies coming out and more on the way for the holiday season, Douvier has a message for the viewing public: “Come and enjoy the seats.”

Information and showtimes for Main Street Theatre can be found at https://mainstreettheatremn.com.