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This summer will be our first full year and in our concession stand we have candy including M&M's,Sourpatch,Twizzlers , Juniour Mints, Starburst and a few other things plus popcorn, soda we use pepsi . a really old nacho mean from loews ( we bought two years after they closed this location , and a hot dog thing old too from loews. What should we get a two flavor slushy machine,get new hot dog and nacho machines or get icr cream . My opinion is a slushy machine whats yours. we own a art and smaller opening movie cinema.to give you a clue this week we have Wrong Turn , Dancer Upstairs,Pokemon Heroes, and Whale rider

Go for the slushy machine

That's a mix of clientle. Must make for some interesting converstaions........ "How'd you like Dancer?" "Go away! I'm here with my mommy to see Pokemon!"

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Michael Hurley
Impresario

I agree, get the Slushy machine. You won't regret it.

Twizzlers, Sqworms, Runts, Sprees. Avoid ice cream products, you will get burned on them...including freezer burn product. Bagel Dogs are yummy, and you can keep them frozen until you get an order for them. Then, just pop 'em in the microwave! You are making me hungry!!!

It's all about popcorn and soda, everything else is window dressing.

Look at the business model of In & Out Burger. They offer only burgers, fries, shakes & Soda. They have no tacos, salads, burritos, crossandwiches, breakfast items or any of the other things.

But we go with the window dressings as well.

If you can find them, try adding Nerd's Ropes to your concession menu. The kids are loving them and during family movies we will sell as many as 75 of them to 300-400 people.

I'll have to go with Large on this one. Popcorn and soda is the staple. After you have those two in place you can go with what you want and do okay. I haven't seen many kids not buy candy because their favorite wasn't there. They usually pick something else.

I have always agreed that popcorn, soda, and candy are the staples of this industry. Make sure you are giving your customers the candy they want, try some different things to see how they sell, then keep what sells and dump the losers. Other good profit and good selling items are:
cotton candy
slush
hot dogs
pretzels with cheese
nachos
bottled water

Its always a crap shoot- Try what you can, and keep the good ones and dump the bad.

Depending on your audience you can add items. Some could take away from sales of the high profit items like soda and popcorn but if they are adding new sales you wouldn';t have gotten it is ok.

We do well with all beef hot dogs but adding vegi dogs (sort of like bagel dogs in format) and gourmet sausages in french roll has added total sales for our arty audience. We looked around to find ones we could microwave. A local baker had the vegis and Costco had Aidell's sausages for less than I could get them from Aidell's.

Costco "fresh" cookies have been a great seller displayed in a glass domed cake tray.

And our gourmet coffee and teas, plus hot chocolate and bottled water all sell big and hvae a good profit margin.

We find a few imported candies (Toblerone and Lindt) supplement the usual lines and people will pay more for them.

we put in 4 weeks ago a slush machine and its doing good.