Eagle Rock Entrepreneurs Offer Dinner and a Movie—With a Twist

A drive-in without the car. A picnic with a movie. An open-air music club with food and a flick. However you spin it, the Outdoor Cinema Food Fest is your one-stop destination for effortless, summer entertainment.

Now in its second year, the Outdoor Cinema Food Fest puts a unique spin on the standard dinner-and-a-movie date by projecting popular second-run movies—this year’s pix picks include Unforgiven, L.A. Confidential and Raiders of the Lost Ark—on the West Coast’s largest outdoor screen in various parks around Los Angeles, from Long Beach to Northridge, Santa Monica to Exposition Park.

The Fest’s tag line? “The Ultimate Picnic. No Basket Required.” The outdoor extravaganza certainly delivers the foodie goods via an ever-changing line-up of invited gourmet food trucks that start serving famished filmgoers at 5:30 p.m. and continue well into the evening.

The fest is the brainchild of Eagle Rock residents Heather Hope-Allison and Steve Allison and their partner J.J. Snyder. As screenwriter Allison explains over coffee and cold beverages at Café de Leche, Snyder and Hope-Allison ran into each other at their 20th high school reunion and decided they wanted to do something together.

Snyder owns Hollywood Outdoor Movies, which supplies the inflatable movie screens that are basically constructed like bouncers. Hope-Allison is one of the principals of Eagle-Rock based TIL PR, a publicity company that specializes in small, celebrity events.

Snyder and Hope-Allison came up with the idea of outdoor movies but wanted an original twist. One day at , Allison was talking to a buddy who had just been at the L.A. Food Fest. Allison recalled that he “ran home” to share his idea of having food trucks at the event. “With the food trucks, it’s all right there!” said Allison of the event.

As if food and movies weren’t enough, a local band opens the weekly Saturday night event, which spans the summer roughly from Memorial Day to Labor Day. According to Allison, the organization posts a call for groups on Craig’s List. The head of Tech Drew Riviera “sifts through tons and tons of bands” and winnows the choices down to about eight.

The event group then has a “roundtable discussion about which band should play which night,” according to Allison, who says they always try to pick a group from the neighborhood where the Fest, which charges $10 for the movie and music, is playing.

“Last year, we had the Elvis impersonator who plays the Eagle Rock Farmers Market!” laughs Allison.

The Outdoor Cinema Food Fest primarily plays at State Parks because it’s easier than dealing with the individual municipalities, says Allison.

Exposition Park, near the California Science Center and the Natural History Museum, hosts the event more than any other venue because “they incur the expense” of items such as fencing. “There are so many neat things [at Exposition Park] like the Rose Garden and the Natural History Museum,” says Allison enthusiastically. “You can spend the last couple of hours at the museum, then come over and have dinner and see a movie. It’s a cool day.”

Depending on the movie, Allison suggests that the Outdoor Cinema Food Fest is a terrific—and safe—family event. The state parks supply a park ranger and the event has its own security staff. No alcohol is sold at the event, although guests are welcome to bring their own. Still, says Allison, the Fest is “not like a rock festival where people are pounding beers.”

The Outdoor Cinema Food Fest promotes sustainability as well. Allison advises that Metro riders get $2 off the ticket price.

Poinsettia Park in Hollywood is the first City of Los Angeles park to host the Outdoor Cinema Food Fest; Allison says the city wanted to try it out in one venue before committing to more locations. Allison and his partners hope to eventually bring the event to their hometown of Eagle Rock, where he and Hope-Allison have lived for the past six years.

“We look for a fenced in field,” says Allison, so baseball fields, such as the one at Yosemite Park, are ideal. “The festival is very low-impact and park-friendly—trash is the only issue and we clean it up.”

He adds, with a laugh: “Next year, Eagle Rock!”