List of dinner theaters explained

This is a list of dinner theaters. Dinner theater (sometimes called "dinner and a show") is a form of entertainment that combines a restaurant meal with a staged play or musical. Sometimes the play is incidental entertainment, secondary to the meal, in the style of a sophisticated night club or the play may be a major production with dinner less important and in some cases it is optional. Dinner theater requires the management of three distinct entities: a live theater, a restaurant, and usually a bar.

Dinner theaters

North America

• Alhambra Dinner Theatre – Jacksonville, Florida
• Battle of the Dance – Anaheim, California (defunct)
• BDT Stage (Boulder’s Dinner Theatre) – Boulder, Colorado^[1] Formed in 1977, a playhouse that puts on Broadway-type shows while supplying eats from around the world.
• Beef & Boards Dinner Theatre – Indianapolis, Indiana (since 1973)
• Bird-in-Hand Stage – Bird-in-Hand, Pennsylvania
• Candlelight Dinner Playhouse – Johnstown, Colorado^[2]
• Chaffin's Barn - Nashville, Tennessee's first professional theater, Chaffin's Barn opened in 1967.^[3] The dinner theatre was forced to close in October 2020, after 50 years of business due to the COVID-19 pandemic.^[4]
• Chanhassen Dinner Theatres – Chanhassen, Minnesota (since 1968)
• Country Dinner Playhouse – Greenwood Village, Colorado, Dallas, Texas, Louisville, Kentucky, Scottsdale, Arizona
• Derby Dinner Playhouse – Clarksville, Indiana (since 1974)
• Desert Star Theater – Murray, Utah; listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places It was later closed down and demolished, but rebuilt and expanded into the Iris Theater. The Iris then changed hands several times before being renamed the Vista.
• The Dinner Detective^[5] – a nationwide theatrical production company based within the United States.
• Dolly Parton's Stampede – a chain of dinner theaters located in the United States that are owned by entertainer Dolly Parton and managed by World Choice Investments LLC, a joint venture between The Dollywood Company, Fred Hardwick, and Herschend Family Entertainment Corporation.
• Drury Lane Theatre – a suburban Chicago theatre group, the original of which operated as a dinner theatre from 1958 to 2003 before closing.
• Encore Dinner Theatre – Tustin, California
• Fireside Theatre – Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin
• Fulton Theatre – was located at West 46th Street in New York City for a few months in 1911 under the name Folies-Bergere; demolished
• Gaslight Theatre – Enid, Oklahoma
• La Comedia Dinner Theatre – Springboro, Ohio
• Laurie Beechman Theatre – in the basement of the West Bank Cafe at 407 West 42nd Street in the Manhattan Plaza apartment complex, just west of Times Square
• Medieval Times – chain of medieval-themed restaurants, featuring a tournament with sword-fighting and jousting
• The Barn Dinner Theatre (Greensboro) - Greensboro, North Carolina - was founded in 1964,and is the oldest continuously running dinner theater in America and the last of the original Barn Dinner Theatres.^[6]
• Murder Cafe – Hudson Valley, New York-based (formerly Las Vegas, Nevada) since 1998
• Murry's Dinner Playhouse Little Rock, Arkansas - Since 1967
• New Theater Restaurant – Overland Park, Kansas
• Paula Deen's Lumberjack Feud Supper Show
• Pirates Dinner Adventures
• Pirates Voyage Dinner and Show – a dinner theater that features Blackbeard, a pirate with a history along the North and South Carolina coasts
• Riverside Inn – Cambridge Springs, Crawford County, Pennsylvania; was listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places; destroyed by fire in 2017
• Roger Rocka's Dinner Theater – Fresno, California, dinner and a musical or play put on by the Good Company Players
• Showboat Dinner Theatre – St. Petersburg, Florida, a popular Tampa Bay venue in the 1970s - 1980s, featuring popular stars of stage and screen, such as Dorothy Lamour, Hayden Rorke, Cesar Romero, and Myrna Loy^[7]
• Teatro ZinZanni – a circus dinner theater that began in the neighborhood of Lower Queen Anne in Seattle, Washington;^[8] expanded to a site on the waterfront at Pier 29 on The Embarcadero in San Francisco, California
• Texas Star Dinner Theater - an Old West Comedy Murder Mystery dinner theater located in Grapevine, Texas
• Toby's Dinner Theatre – Columbia, Maryland
• Windmill Dinner Theater, Fort Worth, Texas
• Way Off Broadway Dinner Theatre – Frederick, Maryland

Australia

• Australian Outback Spectacular – Australian chain of theme restaurants
• Stagedoor Dinner Theatre – Brisbane, Queensland, Australia

United Kingdom

• Joy Swift's Original Murder Weekends – headquartered in Liverpool with shows in six cities across the United Kingdom
• The Mill at Sonning – converted from an 18th-century flour mill, it is located on an island in the River Thames at Sonning Eye in the English county of Oxfordshire

See also

• Lists of restaurants
• Lists of theatres
• Madrigal dinner
• Mystery dinner
• Luau

Notes and References

1. Web site: Home . bdtstage.com.
2. Web site: Home . coloradocandlelight.com.
3. Web site: New Chaffin's Barn owner plans more performances . 2023-06-06 . The Tennessean . en-US.
4. Web site: https://www.newschannel5.com/about-us/rebekah-hammonds . 2021-02-26 . Chaffin's Dinner Theatre property sells for $1.95 mill. . 2023-06-06 . News Channel 5 Nashville (WTVF) . en.
5. Wappler, Margaret (March 15, 2007). "Guess Who's Coming To Dinner Theater". Los Angeles Times.
6. Web site: History . 2023-06-06 . Barn-Dinner-Theatre . en.
7. News: Basse. Craig. Maurice W. Shinners, 78, ran Showboat Dinner Theatre. St. Petersburg Times. November 20, 2002. 15 April 2016.
8. Web site: Vaudeville lives in Seattle . Charles Campbell . Straight . May 26, 2005 . 30 September 2011.